A Certain Affinity Towards Fire
by Yaodai
Summary: Post!GoF. Vernon Dursley decided he's done with all that craziness around his nephew and called for help. The exorcism actually worked. The Order of Phoenix decided to do the only logical thing under these circumstances - to kidnap the exorcist! Bon was not amused.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Hi there! I accidentally jumped into the AnE fandom and my plotbunnies decided to use the opportunity.  
the whole idea of exorcising stuff in the HP world amuses me to no end. So I just started to toy around with it, just to check out what I can do.  
While I do like to poke fun at certain characters for doing dumb things, this story is not going to bash anyone. People usually do have reasons (or I just like to believe they do) for doing stuff.

**Beta: **TealLife**, **ToxicKittySaurus  
**Edit:** 12.01.15

**Chapter 1**  
**Vernon Dursley: Looking For A Specialist**

For something that was supposed to work in the shadows, far from curious stares of normal people, the building was ridiculously big and flashy. On the other hand, the whole organization seemed to have something to do with a school. A prestigious one, no less, so Vernon Dursley didn't know what he was supposed to think.

It all started a few weeks ago, when he overheard a conversation between two workers of his. It was during a lunch break, so he had no reason to snap at them for talking about such odd things. How they spend their free time was completely their business, but he couldn't stop himself from listening either.

Apparently, one of the workers had a certain issue at his place. Things were moving on its own or changing colors. His family was getting more snappish and depressed with each passing day and he felt like something heavy was stuck in his chest. For Vernon Dursley it all seemed way too similar to his own situation to just wave a hand at the sole idiocy of the impossible story. So he stuck around to listen even after the man started talking about exorcisms. It seemed that he had contacted somebody at the local church where the priest gave him a simple business card and told to head to the nearest True Cross Academy building.

Vernon frowned slightly, because he knew perfectly well it was a school, a very good one too, but the fee was ridiculously high and the level of achievements to get there on stipendium was even higher. Besides, what could possibly connect a school of that reputation and some insane freakishness? He was pretty sure the school where his nephew was attending was placed somewhere far in Scotland, while the English branch of TCA was located in London and had a smaller building in Wales or someplace like that. However, from what he had overheard, they were just the place to head for, when a normal person had a not-so-normal sort of problem.

"I never thought," the man finished his story. "I would ever be comfortable at my house again! Then these guys showed up and did their thing, suddenly everything was just perfect!"

"Maybe it was just psychological?" The guy he was talking to pointed out. "You know, they made you believe that everything was fine?"

"Whatever they did, it worked!"

Vernon snorted and shook his head then, because these people were clearly just stupid, but for the next few days, he couldn't stop himself from thinking. His nephew was a freak, a magical one, but he didn't seemed to be all that different from things floating around. He also seemed to be worse than usually and something heavy was definitely in the air at number 4 Privet Drive.

While Vernon had never been a very religious person, because he believed that a man was supposed to deal with problems on his own rather than looking for help from some higher powers. However there wasn't anything wrong with people who were trying to do just that, and right now, Vernon was quite tempted to join the crowd.

So, one hot summer day he found himself wandering into the TCA building, looking for nobody else but an exorcist. It was ridiculous and he felt ashamed for even trying to do such a thing, but since he wasn't planning on talking about it to just anybody… it should be fine.

Finally, he found his way towards a room, where certain sort of problems was supposed to be resolved. The place was as elegant as any other part of the giant building, with a very high ceiling and wide windows. To be telling the truth, it looked somewhat like a bank. Several desks were set, shielded from each other enough to provide privacy and people on the other side were wearing some sort of uniforms. It all looked surprisingly professional and normal, compared to the weirdoes from his nephew's world.

Well, at least these people seemed to know, what they were doing, even if the whole stuff seemed to be rather odd to normal people, Vernon decided. Then he carefully headed towards one of the desks, where a professional looking woman was seated. She was wearing her hair in tight bun and wore glasses, but it was a simple silver cross – the one and only piece of jewelry she was wearing on her person – that made Vernon decide to talk to her. Exorcists were supposed to have some sort of religious symbols, right?

"Excuse me…" he started, awkwardly, not knowing how to ask and not make himself to look like a fool. Because what if she was not part of this religious weirdness?

She looked at him shortly, then nodded.

"Do please sit, sir." She said, her voice calm and just loud enough for him to hear. "I believe you're in a right place."

"And what place is that?"

"You have a certain problem that you could not explain by any other way, am I right?"

Vernon grunted something in agreement, but finally sat in the chair in front of her desk. It seemed he was in the right place after all.

"And I promise, we can help you with that problem. "

"Well, yes, about that…" he started. "You see, I hold a really important position and if that sort of stuff get out… no offense, but that would be just really bad for my reputation."

"Don't worry," the woman on the other side of the desk smiled slightly. "All the information exchanged here is confidential. There is no way for anyone at all to learn about your problems, sir."

"I hope so," Vernon grunted under his breath. They exchanged names after that, but he managed to forget hers as soon as it left her lips. Not that he planned to deal with her anymore that was absolutely necessary anyway.

"So, can you tell us what's troubling your family, Mr. Dursley?"

"This might sound crazy..." he started, but then stopped, feeling completely and utterly embarrassed.

"Do not worry, Mister Dursley. We definitely aren't the ones to judge anybody. You can tell us anything you think is strange or unnatural."

"And then you can do something about it?"

"We will certainly try," she nodded.

He chewed his lip for a moment, thinking. The weirdoes from this mumbo-jumbo place surely seemed to be way more sane than the freaks that used so called magic.

"It's my nephew," he finally said.

"Something happened to him?"

"No! It's..." he went silent, unable to find the right words to describe it. "Actually, I have no idea what happened to him."

"Do please describe it as much as you can. Were there any changes in behavior?"

"Yes," He nodded. "At least I Think so... it's all complicated, you see..."

Then, Vernon just told the woman the whole story. He obviously wasn't supposed to do so. The freaks had told him that on several occasions, screaming about dangers and repercussions. Letting that secret go however, it was like a huge stone suddenly dropped from his back, letting him breathe for real the first time in years. He told her everything, from the very start. About how his wife found the little freak on the doorstep in the end of autumn all those years ago, about the actually not dead dark wizard who murdered Petunia's family, leaving only the kid behind, about the brute that came one day to collect the brat and used his weird stuff on his son... Everything. Including how odd the kid was acting this summer.

She was listening silently, sometimes making notes, but mostly just looking at him, her face completely professional. Not even a slight twitch betrayed her through, which was good, Vernon supposed. He would be hated to be laughed at.

"I mean, he was having nightmares from time to time, like all kids, but this summer... it's got really… annoying is the wrong word to use here, right? I'm sorry, I just can't! Every night at least one time, honestly! Nobody in the house is able to get any rest at all because of that."

"Is he talking when he's asleep?"

"Screaming, mostly. But sometimes..." Vernon shuddered. "Sometimes it's getting worse. He's speaking, but this..."

"Not his voice?" the woman guessed.

"Yes," he nodded slowly. "Then, you do know what is going on?"

"At this point, we can only guess. But we will definitely send somebody to see if we can learn something more."

"Something more...?"

"It's a rather unusual case, to tell you the truth," she said, putting her notebook away. "But I believe, we can help your family and your nephew."

"You can get rid of that...magic stuff?"

"I cannot tell at this moment. In a few hours you should receive a call, then we can decide on a date that is comfortable for you and your family."

"That's pretty... quick." Vernon blinked.

"The time is usually very important," she said. "Let me warn you, through. Many of our exorcist do not look at all like usual priests. So do not feel offended if they are not what you were expecting. I promise, we are taking you and your case extremely seriously."

Vernon Dursley left the True Cross Academy borders feeling somewhat strange, but hopeful. Now he had to just inform his family and the freak what was about to happen…

It went as well as he expected it to.

xxx

"You did what?!" There were times when Even one Harry Potter got the rights to scream bloody murder at his family and be excused for doing so. Like, for example, right now. Even Aunt Petunia seemed to agree with his point of view this time, which was only a little less abstract than the thing Vernon Dursley said a moment ago.

"I called a specialist, boy" Uncle Vernon growled. "You're disturbing our night's rest, no mention lives with that whole thing."

"So what, you think one meeting with a shrink would take care of everything?!"

"Not a shrink. An exorcist."

"You. Are. Kidding me!" Harry moaned. That was not what he expected to get from his oh so very normal family, not at all. For the starters, they were supposed to be normal and mundane, to the point of being more boring than Proffesor Binns and his history lessons. Well, what a surprise, they managed to grow raving mad just during one school year.

"No, I'm not!" Uncle Vernon growled back, like it was an answer for all the questions.

"But you...you hate that stuff! You hate magic and supernatural, and everything else that's weird!"

"And an exorcist is exactly the right man for this job!" Vernon said. "You like it or not, you're meeting with him and you letting him do whatever he find fancy enough to wave in your face!"

That ended the discussion, if there even was one. Harry returned to his room with resigned sigh on his lips. For a little moment he toyed with the idea of writing about the whole bright idea to one of his friends or maybe Sirius, but then he shook his head and lied down on the bed. It was hopeless anyway. Besides, no muggle could just exorcise magic out of a wizard, Harry was pretty sure about that. So he could just go obediently through the whole ordeal and then roll his eyes at Vernon. At least it would be something more interesting than gardening.


	2. Chapter 2

**Beta: **ToxicKittySaurus, broser

**Edit:** 21.01.15

**Chapter 2**  
**The Exorcist**

A few days after Vernon Dursley decided to take action – he'd spoken to the lady at the London True Cross Academy about weirdness, the exorcists arrived in the overwhelming number of two. And they were not what the perfectly normal Dursley family expected at all. While the short middle–aged man with broad shoulders seemed to be more or less normal, the other one happened to be somewhat… controversial.

"You're really going to tell me that this kid... are you even taking me serious?!" Vernon Dursley growled, already red in the face and furious. Dudley decided he would better leave home about now, because the last time his father was so mad at somebody it ended up with his aunt floating to the ceiling. Having his own share of trauma cause by magic in close proximity to his father screaming, running away seemed like the sanest thing to do. So he did just that, sneaking away just a minute after the exorcists entered the house.

"I promise you, Mr. Dursley, that we are taking your case extremely seriously." The older man – Joseph O'something he was called – sighed, while the young man ventured deeper into the house under Petunia's supervision, to talk to the Potter boy. "Suguro might not look like somebody you would want to trust, but he's truly talented. . He's very good at what he does, and while he's young, he's actually more talented than I am. I've worked hard for many years to get where I am, but his expertise is something else."

"Really hard to believe, looking at him." Vernon grimaced. "He looks like a menace!"

"Quite so," the man nodded in agreement. "If I didn't know it for the fact I wouldn't believe that the young man is going to be head of a temple of all things!"

"Head of a temple?"

"Buddhist one, I think," he shrugged. "Or something like that. I'm always getting lost because in Japan they tend to overcomplicate these things. It is called Vidyaraja Dharani and its members are quite popular in our Japanese branch."

"Aren't exorcists supposed to be catholic?"

"Not really." The old man shook his head. "Well, in the old times, in Europe, maybe... but compared to the East, there's not that much to do. There you can never tell if the cat you kicked out of your doorstep was really a cat or some sort of spirit. Madness, I tell you!"

"So… you're saying he's actually good at these things… whatever you're planning to do here?"

"Obviously! While his temple joined the True Cross Order not that long ago, it already had a long tradition of training exorcists on its own. So, Mr. Suguro, while obviously young was practicing almost as long as he's been alive."

Vernon still wasn't exactly happy, but decided to see the things through anyway. If somebody spotted the ridiculous teen while he was here Vernon just could use the old, good story about St. Brutus and tell people that was some sort of friend of Harry's from there. Or something like that. Because while he was clearly unhappy with people the troublesome kid was hanging out with, he couldn't control him all the time, right?

xxx

So. Here it was. The day when some crazy guy, or maybe just somebody looking for easy money would wave all kinds of crap around his head, mumbling nonsense and then talk Uncle Vernon into paying a lot of money. And the next day Harry would definitely feel Dursley's opinion about spending the money on him. Like he asked for something like that.

Harry huffed. Why on Earth couldn't they just leave him alone? His friends definitely hadn't had a problem at all with that sort of stuff. Nobody, not anyone, was answering his letters. And he tried so many times to contact just about anybody! In an act of desperation he even wrote to Mrs. Weasley, but silence was the only answer he got.

And the dreams were getting worse. Cedric wasn't the only one haunting him and Harry really wasn't sure how could he possibly manage to survive till the beginning of the school year.

Sudden knocking on the door startled him and he almost fell off his bed.

"What now?" he asked loud enough, so Aunt Petunia, or whoever was on the other side could hear him.

The answer was rather simple: "Exorcism."

"Uh... come in, I guess?" Harry blinked, trying to keep his face neutral when he headed towards the doors.

But then the doors opened on their own and his jaw dropped, because that wasn't what he expected at all. An exorcist in his mind was some sort of middle-aged man, gray on his temples and balding slightly, waving around his cross and other stuff. That or some other rather amusing image.

Instead, he saw a tall, muscular Asian guy only a few years older than him, with a bright Mohawk and a piercing and a vicious stare that would make even Snape sweat.

Harry couldn't help it.

"Is this some sort of joke?"

"No," there was a shake of his head. The wild hair after that looked even wilder if that was physically possible. "I really am an exorcist."

"And you've got the papers to prove it?" Harry raised his eyebrow. Because the big guy, if you ignore his choice of style, looked absolutely normal. Well, his clothes seemed to be a bit odd, but only because of the weather. It was way too hot to be walking around in a coat, especially a dark one, but that was exactly what the exorcist was wearing. A strange one too, like somebody decided to mix a military jacket with church vestments.

A smirk came with the answer to his question. "Actually, yes."

"Okay, wow." Harry blinked. This was not what he expected. "So uh... what exactly are you going to do?"

"Talk a lot," The exorcist answered in a matter of fact voice. "Find yourself some sort of a book or something. Or die of boredom, whatever you fancy."

Harry blinked again. That definitely was not like anything he'd expected. And was somewhat anticlimactic.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah," he answered and then decided that pushing Harry further inside the room by poking him on the forehead was a good idea.

It wasn't.

Harry wasn't sure what exactly happened. He was about to scream at the guy, or push back or do something, but... he was too late. The moment the exorcist touched his forehead; there was loud crack and a flash of light.

Harry was merely startled by that, while the guy ended up shaking his hand and spitting out a long string of words that sounded like profanities. Even if Harry couldn't understand Japanese at all, he was pretty sure it was the most vulgar thing he'd ever heard.

"Well, screw me!" The exorcist finally switched back to English. "I was pretty sure somebody was pulling my leg, but well, shit!"

"That... never happened before," Harry mumbled, still startled. Not that anybody actually surprised him by poking him all that often, but he was pretty sure nobody else got hurt while touching him. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just got the answer I was looking for."

"And what you were looking for?"

"If there's some nasty shit around you. Well, surprise, you're giving a piggyback to some nasty piece of crap!"

Harry would like to say it wasn't true, that it was just some sort of a hoax to milk a lot of money out of uncle Vernon. But he couldn't argue with facts, he'd experienced something unusual for himself, which made it a bit hard to argue. He wasn't even sure if it was magic, or something else.

"And you can get rid of it?" he finally asked.

"Right now I can only guess what this is. And excluding a handful of things that your unwanted guest definitely isn't," the man grimaced. "There's still a shitload of options."

"Oh..."

"So... this can take up to several hours and I believe we weren't introduced. Ryuji Suguro."

"Harry Potter, but you probably know that already."

"Read the report, yes. Care to tell me where you got that fancy scar?"

Harry suddenly felt very, very cold.

"What do you mean?"

"Your scar. The malevolent energy is concentrated right there," Suguro explained in a flat voice. "Felt sort of like a violent spirit, but not exactly."

Harry felt like he really, really needed to sit down. Dark spots were already dancing before his eyes and the colors suddenly escaped his world, leaving it all green and silent.

"...kid! Crap, kid, breathe!"

Harry blinked. Why did that Suguro guy have an arm wrapped around him? And when exactly had he moved close enough to his bed to sit down?

"Breathe slowly," the exorcist said. "And head between your knees, that helps too."

He decided that for the moment listening to the exorcist was rather fine idea. Breathing was good; breathing was making the world around him less green and was making the black spots go away. Harry liked breathing.

"I think I'm better now," he finally mumbled. Mostly because he was starting to feel a bit of awkward, with a stranger pretty much hugging him.

"Good," Suguro backed off. "Now, do tell what made you so worked up."

"I'm not really supposed to..." Harry gritted his teeth. "Look, there are a lot of laws against talking about magic to people who aren't. Because, you aren't magical, right?"

"Think so," Suguro shrugged, completely unmoved by the sudden revelation that magic actually existed. "But we got the memo about the magical world and so on."

"And you just believed it?"

"Why not?" Suguro looked at him. "I saw enough of strange stuff to believe in any kind of shit, magic included. So just talk to me, okay? If anybody has something against it, I can deal with that after we get rid of this thing."

"I don't think it will be that easy…" Harry mumbled. But the possibility of actually talking to someone about Voldemort and what had happened in the end of the Triwizard Tournament, nightmares and everything else… it was more than just tempting. Besides, people needed to be warned, right? And since there was nothing at all in the newspapers or on the TV… it was his chance to do something. And if he was a tiny little bit selfish about it…

So he did it. He broke the Statue of Secrecy, opened his mouth and started talking. It was actually quite difficult to describe everything he wanted to tell. Not to mention actually telling things in some sort of an order; Harry found himself more than once jumping back and forth, because he suddenly remembered an important detail he'd skipped a few minutes before. Luckily, Suguro was good at listening and smart enough to make a lot of connections on his own. But there wasn't enough time to tell everything. Not even close. And most of this stuff sounded really ridiculous once said out loud. Harry was flustered with embarrassment.

"Don't sweat it," Suguro smirked. "Saw stranger things."

"Like what?" Harry huffed. He really, really wanted to disappear right now. Disappearing would be great. But his cloak was in the cupboard under the stairs, locked shut, with the rest of his stuff. So no turning invisible for him any time soon.

"Huh," the exorcist blinked. "It's hard to pinpoint the oddest thing… Sometimes your brain is trying to erase thing for the sake of your sanity, I guess. But there was that chair, it stalked one guy for several months…"

"A chair?" Harry repeated. It sounded quite funny, but also like something a wizard could do to pull a prank on Muggles. On the other hand, if they dealt with it without magical help – because Suguro definitely was a Muggle, even if quite strange…

"It really was ridiculous," he grimaced. "Especially after we had to find a way to take it down from the ceiling."

There was a soft knock before the doors opened. Behind them Aunt Petunia stood with a sour grimace on her face. Next to her he could see a man who looked like a gentleman straight out of English novels. He had nicely done hair and a mustache over a friendly smile. The bags under his eyes looked like he could use some sleep. He was also wearing similar attire to Suguro, but he actually managed to look like it was some sort of suit instead of amilitary uniform.

The heavy silhouette of uncle Vernon was hovering over both of them. Dudley was probably nearby too. Harry grimaced. Since when had his room turned into some sort of tourist attraction?

"Are you done with the interview?" the gentlemanly looking exorcist asked.

"So–so," Suguro tilted his head with slightly irritated facial expression. "It's more complicated than we believed. Still doable, through."

"It's never easy, isn't it?" he shook his head.

"Not when you're stuck with me," Suguro grimaced. "Honestly, I'm getting all the odd cases your guys managed to find."

"Well," the other one merely shrugged. "You're from Japan. Everything is haunted in Japan."

Petunia was observing the whole exchange at a distance and it was getting more and more stupid. Honestly, did her husband turn stupid all of sudden? These two were bickering, not even taking the whole masquerade seriously. Even that boy seemed to understand it, considering the way he acted when Vernon announced the news. Surprisingly reasonable, especially for his kind.

"You ready?" the older exorcist asked gently.

"Yeah, I know more or less what to expect," the young man nodded. "Be on standby."

"Understood," he nodded. "You want me to react immediately or wait for your command?"

"Command," was the immediately answer.

"Fine by me," the old exorcist shrugged.

"Is this supposed to work like that?" Petunia frowned, looking between them. The young one seemed to be the boss here and that was just wrong. No kid that young should be experienced enough to give orders. But she had warned Vernon enough times already. Besides, what could go wrong? These people were not magical freaks or anything like that. They just believed the oddest and most ridiculous things.

So she decided to just watch the whole ordeal.

The young man - Suguro, he was called - made Harry sit down with his back next to his bed, while he sat down on the floor a few feet away from him in a rather relaxed way. There was an odd looking rosary wrapped around his hand.

His face seemed to be completely blank, excluding a slight frown of his brow and he was reciting prayers - Petunia wasn't exactly sure where these lines were from - without any hesistation.

For first few minutes she was staring. At least she wasn't alone; Harry seemed to be gaping too. Then, it actually got pretty boring. Because all Suguro was doing was sitting there and reciting ancient stuff. In at least three languages. At least his English was surprisingly good for a foreigner.

"It always looks like that?" Petunia asked quietly, eyeing the other exorcist.

"He's an Aria," the older exorcist said with a slight smile. He was standing in the doors not stiff, but not relaxed either

"Aria?"

"They fight the evil by reciting sacred verses. All kind, as you can hear. Not very dynamic, I must admit, and it means he needs a partner too if things go awry, but at the same time they're the safest to do the job around normal people."

"Normal?" she raised eyebrow. That was new. Usually, when dealing with the freaks they tended to act like she was the odd one in the room, or handicapped in some gruesome way. It was beyond offensive, really.

"Normal," he repeated once again, nodding. "There's no need to kid ourselves or anybody else. Exorcist definitely are not normal."

"How so?"

"The only way to be able to do this is to be exposed to the darkest things," he smirked humorlessly. "Not many live through that, even less stay sane."

"What do you mean?"

"You got touched by the evil and you will not be the same anymore, no matter how hard you try. It's a slight possibility for the boy to have side effects."

"Side effects?"

"We exorcist see the world as it really is. All the evil spirits, all the things that bring misery upon people... we are able to see all of it."

"Sounds rather terrifying," she said, because she felt like it needed to be said. Not that she actually believed the man, but the stuff he was saying… it was making her uneasy. Like something heavy was suddenly hanging in the air, making it hard to breathe.

"The line is set so much further for us..." he shook his head.

"But he's young. What could have made him this way?" Petunia decided to change the topic a little bit. That Suguro boy was a rather interesting youth in his very own odd way. Petunia didn't remember her grandmother very well, but the image of the old woman in her mind carried a rosary around too. She usually showed up just to drag her and Lily to the church or just to made them recite prayers with her. She was spent a lot of time on murmuring prayer after prayer, but she hadn't sounded like Suguro at all. His voice wasn't shaking at all, there was no hesitation either. Considering just how many of these things he remembered, not to mention using languages that were not his own… it was actually getting quite impressive. And a tad sad, because he was wasting himself in such an odd way instead of doing something more important with his life.

"This is a rather private thing to ask, Mrs. Dursley," the old exorcist told her with a frown.

Suddenly, the air filled with a thick, dark smoke, that took a human-like shape. The figure floating in the air looked odd, unnatural and terrifying. There was no need for any sort of supernatural abilities at all to feel the darkness and evil seeping from it, turning blood to ice.

"The one to vanquish the dark lord... when the seventh month dies... neither shall live...!"

Petunia gasped and stepped back a few steps, instinctively recognizing the threat. She might not know what killed her sister, she might not know what the vicious villain looked like, but she was sure it was him, the one called the Dark Lord, the murderer, the reason why Harry was left in that basket on her doorstep in the first place.

Harry recognized him too, knowing the voice from his nightmares, suddenly turning reality into one of them.

The dark figure was getting more and more real with every passing second, turning light seeping through the windows into darkness, imprisoning every single one of them in the room, without a way out.

The old exorcist was suddenly before Petunia, shielding her with his own body ready to... she didn't really know what he was going to do. But his kind face turned into a blank mask, his eyes shining dangerously, without a touch of fear in them. Suddenly, he wasn't the kind man she was talking with a few moments ago.

Suguro was standing too - and when exactly had he managed to stand up?- still reciting the holy verses in a strong voice, his eyes opened and staring straight at the terrifying wraith, which reached towards him with skeleton like claws.

Petunia couldn't do a thing, and neither could Harry. There was no wand in close proximity to the boy. Suguro was on his own. And wasn't afraid at all, which was just crazy. With a gesture, he ordered the other exorcist to stay where he was. Like he didn't need help at all, while darkness was growing in front of him more and more, casting dark, unnatural shadows that seemed to reach towards anybody in the wraith's proximity.

She screamed, suddenly spotting a dark shape crawling towards the entrance to the room, towards her. Petunia didn't know what it was or what it was able to do, but her instincts knew better and she was all too aware of Dudley standing right behind her.

The older exorcist saw it too. He made a few gestures and something suddenly rose to existence, between them and the dark creature. It looked almost like a complicated sewing pattern, created like a spider web shining with its own light.

The shadow reached in their direction, skeleton-like hand with finger like claws.

The moment it touched the thin lines in the air, there was a crack and sudden flash of light. The creature suddenly backed off.

Petunia exhaled, realizing just now she was holding her breath. She definitely didn't feel safe. The thin spider web of light definitely didn't seem to be all that solid.

Suguro slightly raised his voice and the creature turned its attention to him, circling around like it was looking for a blind spot. It was still growing, filling the room like dark fire, circling around the young exorcist. It was clearly cutting him off.

At least it left Harry alone, concentrating on somebody that was more dangerous to it.

Suguro was moving slightly, keeping his eyes on the monstrosity, his voice still loud and clear, almost like he was mocking the evil spirit.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me..."

The wraith suddenly gripped his arm.

He was ready, knife already in his hand. Suguro grinned ferociously and cut his own palm, letting the blood seep out. He said something too, but Petunia was unable to catch the word, much too horrified by the dark presence and the way Suguro had cut himself to recognize anything else.

Suddenly, bright fire lit the room, seeping through nowhere, or maybe brought up here by the offering of the wound. Suguro made a command with a single gesture and the unnatural fireobeyed him, wrapping itself around the dark figure and binding it in chain-like structures, then setting it aflame. High-pitched shrieks filled the air, loud enough to make the glass in the windows shake and creating spider webs of cracks.

The smell of amber and burned sand filled the air.

The unnatural fire died as suddenly as it appeared. There was no trace of it in the suddenly dark room whatsoever, like there had been no flames at all. Even the air seemed to be cool. For a mere second, Petunia managed to catch an oddly bright light in the exorcist's eyes, but that could have been just an illusion. Eyes definitely didn't shine with their own light, magic or not.

"What...was that?" Petunia breathed weakly.

"The ace up his sleeve," the old exorcist said in gloomy voice. "Most of the Aria need a support during the exorcism because while reciting the sacred texts they are completely vulnerable."

"But this is not the case with him," she said slowly.

"It's not. You found yourself quite in luck, Mrs. Dursley. His whole clan possesses…a certain affinity towards fire, but the head of the temple is on a level of his own."

"Head of the temple?"

"Yeah, he's the next most holy priest… or something like that. As I said, it was quite lucky. The wraith was quite strong and I'm afraid somebody else would leave a lot more mess than a broken window."

Well, Petunia found herself thinking. The floor looked like it had never seen any fire at all and the rest of the room was just fine too. She could deal with the broken glass.

"That was interesting," the young exorcist said, his voice calm and steady, like there had been no horrific wraith in the room mere moment ago.

"Interesting?" Petunia repeated weakly.

"Not exactly what I would expect, but not in the league with some of the things I have had to deal with in the past," he shrugged. "Anyhow, I believe we should talk a bit more. The spirit was doing a more than just screwing around with the kid."

"W–what do you mean?" Harry managed to say. His voice was weak and he looked like he was close to fainting; very pale, ashen almost with eyes wide open and irises big enough to make them seem black.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Hi there! I'm sorry it took so long to upload this chapter, but well. It is summer and my computer is not taking the high temperatures well. It's quite difficult to write when you need to turn your working device off every now and then - and I'm not native, so it takes even longer.  
There's also the thing about how long this chapter happened to be. I have stuff planned for every chapter and they are just growing a bit bigger than planned. I don't really want to cut them in half, just to have more stuff to update.

Right now the chapter is not proofread-ed, later on I'm going to switch it with the prettier version. Didn't want to make you wait even longer.

**Chapter 3**  
**Dealing with the demons**

Vernon Dursley didn't know what to expect from the exorcists, but that definitely wasn't it. Whatever the kid did there it looked more like job of these freaks his nephew was hanging out with. On the other hand, Vernon knew that throwing out of the house somebody who could set things on fire by pure power of will wasn't the best idea.

Petunia shared his sentiment, considering how pale she looked.

"I..." she said, her voice slightly breaking. "I'm going to make tea."

"Yes!" he agreed quickly. "Tea! Tea is wonderful!"

They both hurried downstairs, grabbing Dudley on the way and dragging him away too, because the more distance between them and the weirdness, the better.

Suguro raised eyebrows.

"Brits," the other exorcist snorted quietly.

"You are one too, Joseph."

"Doesn't mean It will stop amusing me any time soon," the man grinned. "You freaked them out a little, you know."

"W-what was that?" Harry managed to wheeze through his teeth. And not bite his tongue off while doing so, which was rather impressing, considering how much they were clattering. He saw many things during his short time in magical world, many terrifying things, including Voldemort himself and Dementor who was about to suck his soul out, but this… this was something entirely else.

"I just exorcised an evil spirit?" Suguro tilted his head, like there was nothing wrong about the situation at all.

"By setting it on fire?" Harry shook his head. "I was sure it would look more like reciting prayers all day or waving around something that smells funny..."

He blinked, then blushed. Damn, he was nervous wreck and babbling really stupid. Or at least this was how Harry felt.

"Uh... sorry?" he murmured. "No offense, I just..."

"Saw that on TV?" Joseph helpfully added.

"Uh, yeah!" Harry agreed. "Something like that. But still! You set Voldemort on fire!"

"...um, yes. That wasn't planned," Suguro grimaced slightly. "Usually this sort of spirits is not that, uh..."

He paused an eyed the other exorcist. His expression was odd mix of annoyance and loss.

"Touchy-feely?" the older man proposed with a smirk.

"Stop joking around!" Suguro growled.

"In need for a hug?"

"That's not the word either."

"You're just picky."

"Are you guys even serious?" Harry groaned. All that bickering was definitely completely out of place. Shouldn't they act more professional or at least act like it wasn't just a childplay.

"Right now not really," the older man admitted with a smile and a shrug.

Suguro huffed at him with irritation, crossing his arms. The other exorcist completely ignored him and started explaining further.

"Anyhow, the plan was to do the usual, boring, recite until it drop dead stuff," he said. "Or shot it."

"You can exorcise evil ghost by shooting them?" Harry's eyes widened. "How that even works?"

"Well, you pull the trigger..."

"But wouldn't the bullet just go through the ghost like he's made of air?" Because well, ghosts were still ghosts. Things were just going through them, Harry remembered Moaning Myrtle and her bad mood triggered by that sort of happening rather well. How exactly were they supposed to feel the bullet then?

"It all depends," Joseph shrugged. "Different things can be put down by different types of ammunition. There is surprisingly great amount of memory work. It's easier for knight, they just smack things until they drop."

"Okay," Harry said slowly. He still didn't understand a thing, but maybe they just found a way to make ammunition from ectoplasm or something like that. It worked in the movies, so why not in the real life too? "But where the fire comes in?"

"He just tapped it."

"Excuse me?"

"Tapped. Like in a card game. To beat one monster you have to bring your own. Stronger too, obviously."

That was making sense, Harry decided. Ask bigger monster to smash smaller one over the head. Pretty simple, but still, one thing about using dark creatures in exorcism was odd.

"Aren't you supposed to fight demons?"

"There's just a problem with ordination," Suguro shrugged. "Honestly, the man who put the system in place was an idiot."

"Yeah, sorta. He just smashed everything together and called it a day," Joseph sighed with a small smile.

"So, there are good demons, or something?"

"It's way more complicated than that," Suguro groaned. "But for now we might stick to that. Familiars counts as good demons. Just don't tell anybody I actually said that."

Harry nodded slowly.

"I think your family had enough time to get over it, don't you?" Joseph smiled towards him.

"I think it's going to take them years to get over it," he grimaced. "They still are in the process with getting over me being magical, so uh…"

"I'm sure we can work something out," he said optimistically.

Yeah, Harry thought. A black eye, for an example.  
He looked around the room, not sure what he was expecting to see. Still no traces of any kind of fire whatsoever. Only the cracked window was a proof that something actually happened in here. That, and…

"Your hand," Harry licked his lips, trying not to stare too much. Gaping at other people's hands was weird, but he couldn't exactly help it as his brain decided to recall the whole situation, focusing precisely on the moment when knife's edge pierced skin.

"It's just a gash, kid," Suguro shrugged. "Relax."

"But–" he tried to protest, but stopped himself. That was the stupid question and he could guess the answer on his own rather well. But that brought another mystery. "Why had you do that? I don't know anything, but using blood still seems…"

"Excessive?"

"Yeah," he nodded. Even in magical world people usually were not using things like that, unless they were right in the middle of some very dark rituals.

"It's because I used fire spirit's help, as Joseph said," Suguro explained. "Some demons don't like to act like familiars and prefer to stick more to the guardian spirit tradition. You usually have to pay them in some way for the help, and blood is…"

He stopped, unsure what word to use.

"Always on hand?" Joseph smirked.

"Something like that," Ryuji grimaced slightly at the joke, because it was another bunch of words he wasn't really looking for. But it was close enough. "Anyhow, it's more like a cat scratch anyway. All I needed was a few drops, so I didn't try to chop my hand off or anything."

xxx

"What are we going to do, Vernon?" Petunia whispered to her husband when they reached the kitchen.

"Why are you asking me?" He wheezed back, nervously looking at the doors from time to time, like he was expecting something spooky to jump any minute.

"You were the one who asked weird people to come!" Petunia grunted, filling the teapot with water and setting it on stove with loud clang. She exhaled loudly through her nose, staring at it, like it would help water to boil sooner than usually.

"How could I know that it would turn this way?" Vernon grunted. "All I wanted was to exorcise the weird out of the brat, not this!"

"This somewhat counts as the weird," Petunia pointed out.

"You know what I meant!"

"And I told you was impossible even before they actually started doing... whatever it was," she hissed through her teeth, collecting tea service from the cabinet and then arranging it neatly. "It's like trying to exorcise a mustache from a man. You just can't do that!"

"Actually..." Dudley suddenly cut in. "I saw on the TV once, that there are pills for that..."

"Dudley, hush!"

"But mom!" he protested.

"Don't argue with your mother, young man!"

"I'm not arguing...!" he protested. "Besides... that was sort of cool!"

"Dudley, no!" They both gasped, not even sure if he was talking about the pills from TV or the whatever happened upstairs. They weren't even sure which one was the better of two evils in this equation.

"But it was! Like in the movies, or something!" he continued, flushing slightly from excitement. Well, at least they now knew what he was talking about.

"Yes, almost like magic," Vernon rolled his eyes.

"That wasn't magic," Petunia stated. "I know how it's looks like and it wasn't magic."

"Well, so Harry can't set stuff on fire," Dudley shrugged.

"And thank Heavens for that!" They both screamed at the same time. Their son blinked, then took the step to the side, then another one, making a little bit of distance between himself and them.

"So," he asked carefully. "What now? Are you going to throw them out, or something?"

"They just set that thing on fire and I doubt they have the same rules about using weird stuff around normal people as the freaks," Petunia murmured, eyeing her husband carefully. "Otherwise they wouldn't work like that, right? Visiting honest people and doing… things."

Vernon understood the point she was making very good. If there was no rules against doing something, then if angered, some oddballs might decide to prove a point in a very uncivilized way and he had literally nothing to prevent weird people from hurting his family.

"We are going to sit down and listen whatever they want to say," Vernon said out loud, trying very hard to not sound nervous. "We are going to politely nod and then we are going to forget about this whole thing."

"I told you it was a bad idea," Petunia sighed deeply and shook her head. Then she proceed to moving the tea set and then the kettle with hot tea to the dining room, putting down everything with great care, like the fate of the world depended on the spoons lying down in perfect straight line.

"What was that thing anyway?" Vernon asked, when she made second turn for more cups.

She almost sounded like she was bored when she answered him. "The Dark Lord, I think."

"Isn't he supposed to be dead?"

"He was," Petunia grunted. "But apparently, he's not."

"Were the freaks lying then? In that letter, I mean?"

"I don't think so..." Petunia shook her head. "I just can't wrap my mind around it."

"You're not the only one, Pet."

"But why the freaks let Harry just run around with that ultimate terrorist of theirs?" Dudley asked. "Couldn't they do the thing?"

"I don't think they even knew about it."

Dudley frowned, thinking for a moment, before he stated the obvious."That's weird."

"We're talking freaks here, son. Of course it's weird."

It didn't took long for Harry and the two exorcists to join them downstairs. At least the brat had the decency to look as nervous and the rest of the family.

"For what I understand," Suguro started when they all settled down by the table, gesturing slightly, white piece of band-aid on his palm catching eye and proving that whatever happened upstairs, really took place. "The being wasn't only parasiting on the boy here," he waved at Harry. "But was subtly changing the whole family."

"What do you mean, changing?" Vernon demanded.

"The usual victims of spirits similar to your problem are very fond of depressed, isolated people. They also tend to bring to surface the ugliest feeling and make them grow stronger. They also tend to..." he stopped for a moment, looking for the right expression, then just shrugged. " Invite friends."

"You mean, there is more than one?"

"No, which would be surprising if not for the rather creative wards around the house."

Petunia brow furrowed. "The man who left Harry here wrote something about the blood wards," she said quietly. "They were supposed to keep the evil people away."

"And fine job they did!" Vernon grunted.

"Actually, they seems to work just fine," Suguro said. "I managed to caught just a glimpse, but I'm pretty sure they're active and working. The problem is, while they were not letting anything in, they were also keeping everything inside too, isolating you even further. Double edged sword, of sorts."

"I doubt they ever knew there was possibility for these wards to work this way," Joseph said, putting down his cup. "Most of the people, even magical people, are oblivious to this sort of things and supernatural beings tend to ignore normal humans. That's why all the clashes are spectacularly bad; nobody knows what is going on."

"Then how are you going to deal with it?" Petunia blinked, feeling worried again. "And how we are going to live with it?"

Because she really hated to put her Duddykins in any sort of danger. If there really was something in the house, something similar to that horrifying wraith of a man who killed her sister…!

"I would like you to be in contact for at least a few months," Suguro stated. "Malevolent spirits tend to be stubborn. And the sudden power vacuum looks like an invitation for anything interested."

"Are you telling that it could return and take over the boy again?" Vernon groaned.

"Not only to him," the old man shook his head. "I'm afraid, they tend to attack people connected by blood. Or leave enough miasma traces for other beings to take interest."

Petunia didn't understood what that miasma thing was or how it worked, but she could guess well enough that they were still in danger.

"How… how it could end for us if Vernon wouldn't ask for help?" she asked. Grasping hard on the material of her skirt under the table, so nobody was able to see how trembling her fist was or how white her knuckles turned.

The exorcists exchanged looks and it was really all she needed to know, it was telling so much that hearing the answer was unnecessary.

"Well," the older man started carefully, his eyes wandering from one member of the Dursley family to another while he was talking. "It all depends on what kind of spirit decided to invite itself to the household. Cases of decreasing energy of members of the household are rather usual, sometimes to the point of putting the whole family in coma."

"And this isn't the word case scenario, isn't it?" Vernon asked, grimacing.

"No, this is really mild," Suguro admitted bluntly. "That's why I want to monitor your family, Mr. Dursley. I have more experience with this sort of thing and know what to look for."

He stopped for a moment, as if he was thinking which words to use to explain things further. Instead his mouth curled a bit and his fingers travelled along the white line of band-aid.

"And I'm sorry about the window."

xxx

It was almost half of a year since Suguro got stuck in England because of reasons nobody wanted to talk about but everybody knew politics was somewhat involved.

He didn't really mind living that far away from home. And besides, he was doing exactly the thing somebody was trying to prevent him from doing.

Naturally it all started with Rin, because everything in this world had to do something with the idiot.

First, he admitted to have quite a big problem and a real-deal guillotine hanging over his head only two months before theoretical exams for the title - either he passes them or he end up dead and the fact he managed to beat the crap out of Illuminati and stand up to Lucifer himself wasn't meaning a thing. At least Mephisto managed to talk people into counting it as a passed practical part of the exam.

Suguro ended up pretty much moving into the dorm where Okumura brothers were living and, by joining forces with Neko and Izumo, started a painful and frustrating process of forcing the knowledge into thick skull of half-demon.

After Rin managed to do the impossible and actually passed the real mess started with everybody fighting with everybody else and somehow MyouDha managed to not only stay afloat but actually rise in the ranks. They also managed to assimilate two small families, thanks to what Suguro could throw his weight rather effective.

The sudden grow in power wasn't welcomed everywhere and somebody had to recognize Suguro as dangerous enough to move him away from the chessboard before he would become too important.

And so, Suguro ended up in England and proceed to quickly building up his reputation and trying to meet as many people as possible.

Now it was getting even more interesting, because magic.

Suguro dropped into chair at the kitchen table with heavy sigh.

"Was all that showing off really needed?" Joseph asked, taking a seat nearby.

Living here was not all that different from living in the True Cross Academy dorms. Most of the local exorcist were living in single building. Similar cells were located all over the England, making moving people around much easier. As far as Suguro knew, the Doors around here were used only for emergencies, so the path wouldn't be in lockdown if something happen.

This particular cell was located in old, one store high building with elegant facade and truly annoying mess when it came to heating. It was more not working at all than working properly and when for some reason it was actually doing its job, it wasn't the time.

But they all were living here rather temporary and they were returning to the cell just to sleep for awhile and then go back to whatever they were actually working on.

Joseph was rather special snowflake; for years he was walking into situations others were not even trying to poke with a stick and while he wasn't the most talented person in the field, he had patience of a saint. He also instantly took Suguro under his wing, finding time–lagged, dumbstucked by sudden change of scenery and language youngster as something hilarious. Especially after Ryuji opened his mouth and tried to communicate in English for the first time.

"No," Suguro admitted. "I didn't expect it to break through my barrier."

"You should be more careful," Joseph said, standing up and heading straight for the pot, to make some tea. Bad sign. When someone like him get worked up on something that meant you screwed something really badly.

"I know!" Suguro moaned. "I'm getting too used to all this and I know I should keep my head in the game, but..."

"What you need is to take a few days off," Joseph pointed out. "I know what you are trying to do, but overdoing it wouldn't lead to anything good."

"Easy for you to say."

"Pointing out that I'm not the most ambitious of people is not a very good thing either."

"Right. Sorry," he mumbled, turning away.

"I'm not angry at you for alluding to my weak points," Joseph huffed, venturing through the fridge to stole something edible from somebody. "I'm angry because for all your smarts, you're still not thinking! You can't just let things grab you and hope for the best. There will be that one time when it will fail and you will be done."

Suguro grit his teeth. It was not the first time he heard that. Apparently, he made a full circle and was exactly where he started. He felt frustrated with himself, because all that effort he put into breaking this bad habit – it was all for nothing.

"You just need a rest," the older exorcist patted him on the shoulder blade; because of the height difference reaching all the way towards his shoulder would be a bit too much. "Give it a few days and you will be back with a fresh mind. No need to be down."

"I'm not good at doing nothing," Suguro admitted with a grimace.

"Well, you promised that kid to show up, why not turn it into a bigger project then?" Joseph shrugged. "You will be doing something and not risking your life for a change. You can even learn something new if you really need to."

"About that," Ryuji mumbled, eyeing the other man. "Did you know? About magic, I mean. Because I definitely wasn't expecting that to came out."

"I knew they exist," Joseph admitted. "Didn't tell you, because they are really twitchy about the topic and trigger happy too. Shoot fireworks first, ask questions later sort of people. Better to ignore their existence whenever that's possible, the life instantly gets far less messy."

"It might change pretty soon, through," Suguro murmured. "The kid told me quite a story about the dark Lord of theirs who recently came back to life. He might become an issue."

"Well, then you found yourself a mission already," Joseph snickered. "Have fun investigating that."

Were magical people really that bad? Right now Suguro had no idea, but sour mood of the other exorcist was telling stories of its own. He usually was very cheerful and tolerant. If somebody got on his nerves enough to made him spitting a bit of venom on the whole community…

This, Suguro decided, was going to be very interesting.  
He probably should run.

xxx

A few days later, the younger exorcist showed up, exactly as promised. In civilian clothing with was good and bad at the same time. Good, because these dark cloaks were rather odd in such warm weather and people would talk and bad, because he was sticking out like a sore thumb anyway.

"Well," Vernon grunted awkwardly, trying to look everywhere but the young exorcist. "It's better, I think. And we took down the bars from the windows."

Suguro blinked. "You had bars in your windows?"

"You didn't...?!" Vernon gasped, then his face turned bright red. "I think this is too late to act like I never said that, right?"

"Kinda?"

Vernon Dursley hoped that after the exorcism was done, he would feel better, like that man from work, who was so in awe.

Not that Vernon actually believed in this sort of things, he was standing firmly on the ground, but still, he knew all that psychological mumbo-jumbo was worth something. It was showing up again and again in management meeting in his firm, where some people from schools were babbling about how making people feel better about themselves was making them working better, even if the method of choice to rinse their morale was plain dumb.

But Vernon wasn't feeling better at all. If anything, his feelings got much, much worse.

For the two whole days he was walking around with the feeling of uneasiness, not even able to tell what was the cause of this anxiety. The only thing he know it was the feeling of wrongness was strong enough to keep him up at night, stirring in the bed frantically and trying not to follow the impulse to get up and just run as fast as possible, far, far away and in his pajamas.

In the evening of the second day he gave up on sorting this out by himself and started asking brat the questions; because he spend some time alone with both of the exorcists, so maybe he had an answer to this problem.

He hadn't, of course, but now Vernon had at least clues.

They told him that living with the bug-wraith on his forehead for years could have an impact on his biochemistry, wrecking havoc on hormonal levels and all the other things.

That actually made some sense; it was similar to nicotine addict deciding to drop the cigarettes - all the machinery inside the body was so used to that substance, that without it, everything was working just wrong.

Were they reacting in similar way? Were their bodies so used to this dark weird thing being nearby so much, they were going through withdrawal symptoms?

The answer came suddenly, from completely unexpected source.

Because the glass in Harry's room was broken, he had actually call some people to do the work and put a new one in the window frame. It was all very irritating and both Vernon and Petunia were too tired to really deal with people, but there wasn't much choice. This had to be done before it starts raining again, otherwise the whole life would go to hell.

Luckily, the two guys who showed up did their job quickly and professionally. But one of them said something, that freeze blood in Vernon veins for some unexplained reason.

"Oh," the man said, entering the room that was once Dudley's second bedroom. It was still pretty empty, just a bed and that broken wardrobe, a desk and a bunch of knick-knacks. " Somebody is moving in? Pretty bare for now on, huh?" he probably noticed Vernon's reaction, so he added quickly. "Don't worry, after a few days this place will surely fill up with all kind of things!"

"Yes," Vernon nodded, trying to not turn stiff as stone. "My nephew just moved in, it was quite unexpected and we had to clean up this room in hurry. It was... a store room, you see."

"I understand," the man grinned cheerfully. "I don't really like to throw stuff away too and after awhile the garage is just not enough to keep everything, right?"

He wasn't exactly sure why he was lying or why he laughed with that irritating guy, trying to not sound nervously, while the feel of wrongness was growing inside him.

Later that day, he sat down in his and Petunia's bedroom and turned on the computer, creating a new file with simple table with two columns. Putting things in order was always making thinking easier while he bumped into some sort of challenge at work, so it should work elsewhere just fine.

The one side was titled 'weird' while the other was proudly stating 'normal'.

Vernon clicked his tongue, staring at it for awhile, then typed his nephew name, just under the first word. It didn't seems to be working, he decided after another minute of gaping at the computer screen. He deleted the word, then decided to take a different approach and start with the room.

Harry was living in the spare bedroom like just any other kid and that was just fine and perfectly normal. Harry was living in the room that looked like it was a storage just until yesterday and he was living there for years, which seems to be somewhat wrong. And before that, he was living in the cupboard under the stairs. Vernon frowned, then wrote down the sentence. If he found that statement in a report, a book or even a movie, he would call it ridiculous. Knowing that he actually used to keep a kid in the cupboard was...a bit disturbing, no matter all that freakishness.

Vernon groaned, but decided to leave the cupboard in the weird section. Now, when he was on a trail, the work got easier but at the same time he really didn't want to see what he was typing.

Harry was cooking, harry was cleaning, Harry was doing gardening and wearing Dudley's clothes. Everything seemed to somehow be about Harry and everything was just wrong.

The exorcist who set the evil weirdo on fire said that the weirdo could made them do nasty stuff. Was this it then? Was he feeling so uneasy, because without monster hovering over the household he was finally able to feel that something was not right?

Vernon shook his head. Magic was weird and dangerous, so keeping freaks away from normal people was making sense, right?

Anyhow, now he was forced to make some changes. People saw the state of the room, not only the other group of weirdoes but the normal, honest to god workers too. People do talk and Vernon would really hate them to talk bad about him. He had a reputation after all. Till this day, the magical thingies freaks set up around the Privet Drive were keeping people from noticing much, but Vernon didn't feel like resisting this too much. It's not like they really cared about him or his reputation.

The next day, he handed the brat a hundred and told him to go and purchase some decent clothes. And decided that the bookcase was just taking too much room in the dining room anyway, so it could go to the smallest bedroom, along with the trunk and all the other stuff that belonged to kid and was taking space in perfectly good cupboard.

"Barriers...!" Suguro groaned, massaging his temples. "Apparently, they make people ignore certain things."

"But why you didn't notice this before?" Vernon blunted out.

"I might be an exorcist, but that doesn't mean I can't be influenced."

"Isn't this making things more difficult?"

The exorcist shrugged. "I do know to expect something. I know what I wrote myself for, after all. And it's not like these things are malicious anyway."

"They could be," Vernon murmured. Then he bit his tongue, but it was already too late, the words were already out in the open.

"Point," luckily, the exorcist didn't took is as something offensive. "I can set up some sort of defense against the evil spirits if you like. The most effective way would be to just do it outside, but I doubt you want somebody wandering around out in the open and talking funny."

"It is going to look like a priest blessing the house, or something?"

Suguro blinked, then he gave a small, crooked smile. "Actually it would be exactly like that."

Vernon stared for a moment and then stared some more.

"You are a priest?" because, honestly, with how he looked like…! Not to mention, he was a bit too young to be some sort of religious figure.

"I am," he just said.

There was, of course, some sort of story behind that, but Suguro decided not to share this. Vernon was completely fine with it, because he still wasn't sure how he himself felt about the whole deal. At least the exorcist was bind by some sort of secrecy, so he could be a bit less worried about people knowing.

The – whatever he was doing – took a few hours and was rather underwhelming. Just standing in the room, reciting prayers out loud, with fingers bend in odd way and strange rosary dangling between them. The most admirable thing about the whole deal was the fact that young exorcist didn't die out of boredom.

He finished at the smallest bedroom and then proceed to ask Harry all sort of questions about how he was feeling. Vernon after a moment of consideration decided let them be. Not that anything was going to happen. All the scary stuff was already done. At least he hoped so.

Harry wasn't sure what to think about the whole situation either. On one hand, talking magic with somebody completely Muggle felt weird – the magical world probably rubbed on him with this one – on the other, he saw how Suguro dealt with the Voldemort–like wraith.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, after they were done with all that difficult stuff about changes in emotions and fear.

"Doing what?"

"You know," Harry made a wide gesture with his hand. "This. You weren't ever scared when you fought off Voldemort."

"Saw way more terrifying things than him," Suguro shrugged. "And I'm doing it, because I can."

"That's a stupid reason."

"But the only one you're going to get," he huffed. "It's not like you were not in similar situation before."

Harry blinked.

"That brat you saved? You told me about it."

"But that was different!" Harry protested. "If I didn't do anything, she would have died!"

"Probably," Suguro agreed. "But this is exactly the same for me. Either I do my job, or people are going to die."

"At least you got to choose," he grunted, looking away.

The exorcist hummed quietly, his brow furrowed. "You know, I'm not exactly sure about that. I was shielded in some way, but eventually I would end up in the same place I'm right now. It would just take a little bit longer."

They talked a bit more, but there wasn't anything as meaningful as that. Harry spend rest of the evening thinking, how his life would go, if there was a choice for him to make. Would he just ignore everything, that was going on, or go and do the right thing anyway?

It was called a right thing for a reason, after all.

xxx

The exorcist showed up again after three days.

By all means, Suguro should be the last person Vernon Dursley would felt comfortable talking to.

Foreigner who was still butchering English from time to time, very young but at the same time a few years too old to treat him like a brat. He looked like a thug too, especially without his uniform. No mention, he was living in even more freakish way than his nephew, in a world, where monsters really were crawling from under the beds and dead were walking.

But for some strange reason, talking to him didn't seem wrong. Or he just needed to let all of it go, before the words would burst out of his mouth when somebody else, somebody not weird would be around.

"You see, it all was making perfect sense!" Vernon said, feeling a little bit like he was just rambling at this point. "But a few days ago I've written it all down, the things I was doing and why, and then it just... stopped. Making sense, I mean. Or even being normal!"

Because keeping little brat in cupboard, hoping that all the odd things about him will perish from one day to another was definitely not normal. Right now, Vernon wasn't even sure how exactly it seemed logical at all.

"You guys told us it was because of that...whatever it was, but I don't think we can just dump all the off things on that and call it a day."

They just wanted to be normal back then and it didn't change much. Vernon still preferred his mundane life from all that craziness around. But by trying to force the world act the way they liked, they jumped straight into doing things that definitely counted as, well, crazy.

"I won't tell you it wasn't you," Suguro said with a deep sigh. "Or it was all the barrier and dark spirit fault. The beginning lies elsewhere and we both know it."

That was fair, Vernon thought. He should be offended, furious even, but this was just dry statement, nothing else. They never really wanted another child, Dudley was just enough. And the way magical people just dropped the boy on them was really angering.

It seemed to be somewhat logical too. The emotions, closed in bubble that wasn't letting anything go through, the emotions probably started to just acting like geometric sequence growing worse and worse until they finally turned into some wicked parody of normalcy.

"But shouldn't we all be afraid? Of things that we can't control?"

"Fear is natural. But denying that shit hit the fan would not make the room any less stinky," Suguro deadpanned.

"Way to break the mood," Vernon grimaced, trying very hard to get rid of that particular mental image and failing.

He received a shrug for an answer. "Dumb jokes always make things easier to accept."

Honestly, Vernon had no idea what his opinion about the exorcist was. On one hand he was one of the weird people, no mention that he gave a distain suggestion about seriously messing things up if he meets resistance. But then, he was not overusing his power at all. And he was listening, while not judging. Vernon wasn't sure if it was because of the whole being a priest business or because Suguro just didn't really cared about anything that took place at Privet Drive.

Mr. Dursley wasn't the only one who couldn't make his mind; Harry had exactly the same problem. Suguro could be downright terrifying at times.

Besides, he had no idea what else was there to do, after the wraith of Voldemort was dealt with. Everything was supposed to be fine, the adventure over before it even began. But the exorcist seemed to not share the sentiment, considering the fact they were meeting again.

"Well, uh..." Harry suddenly felt awkward. "That's for showing up?"

"Not a problem. I was the one who offered in the first place, dumbass," the exorcist snorted. Or should Harry said, Suguro? Since the other boy was out of his uniform, wearing a tank-top and jeans cut under the knees, he looked more or less normal. Punkish-style and somewhat oriental because of his origin, but still like any other ordinary guy. Was he off the clock then?

"So," he said. "How's going?"

"Uh," Harry bit his lip. "Fine, I guess?"

"You guess," Suguro raised eyebrows.

"Well, okay, I have no more nightmares," he said, grimacing slightly. Less than usual, at least and he wasn't dreaming about things he didn't saw anymore. That didn't erased the Triwizard Tournament from his mind, but he actually managed to sleep through whole night once.

Suguro was waiting.

Harry grimaced, but the exorcist wasn't going anywhere, at least not until he hear everything he wanted from him, so all Harry could do at the moment was to raise white flag and just cooperate. "Well, at least these about...him. I still dream about the past, though."

"That's not really surprising, you know. The brain is trying to cope, make sense out of the informations and so on."

"I suppose," Harry mumbled. "But that's definitely not the best thing in my life. I mean, if I could've do anything to..."

"Are you trying to say that his death was your fault?" he picked up instantly, his sharp eyes staring right at Harry, making him feel uneasy.

"Well, I was the one, who..." he babbled nervously.

"Cut the crap and stop being stupid," Suguro huffed with irritation. "Was there a way for you to know that it was a trap?"

"Well, no, but..."

"No buts. Others were responsible for keeping the whole thing safe and they failed miserably at it. You were not supposed to join the mess in the first place."

"Don't expect logic from wizarding world," Harry sighed.

"I have to agree on that one," Suguro rolled his eyes. "But this doesn't change the point. You never pulled the trigger nor you had the chance or skills to do anything."

"But if not me, then who? I mean, everybody is fixated on me, even, you know, Him. I can at least try to use all that stupid fame to do something!"

Ryuji smiled. "I can understand that. But what exactly are you going to do?"

Harry blinked.

"I mean, to do something, you have to actually plan, right?"

"I was always just rolling with it, I guess?" Harry scratched his head. "The disaster just happened right in front of me anyway, so…"

"But right now everything seems to be rather still, isn't it?" the exorcist pointed out and Harry had to agree. He couldn't find sign of Voldemorts activity anywhere and the wizarding world was even quieter than usual.

"So," Ryuji continued, satisfied with his silence. "Why not use all that free time?"

"Like what?" he grunted. "He's not only more powerful than me and has more experience, but he's like The Dark Lord around here! What possibly I could do?"

"This is not the right attitude, you know," Suguro huffed, crossing his arms. "While it's good you don't underestimate your enemy, there's no reason to not do something unexpected."

"Unexpected?"

"The options are all around you, kid. Read more about that magic of yours, so you would have at least an idea what's going on. Try to learn something about self–defense. Go learn how to make explosives and blow up his hideout. Or better blow up something else and frame him, so other people would join the fight!"

"Explosives?" Harry blinked. "Like how I'm going to learn that?"

"Go ask your cousin, I'm sure he can tell you all about it," Suguro grinned.

"Are you even treating this whole thing serious?"

"Yes, I am," Ryuji nodded. "I just don't see much sense in curling in the corner or looking for the cover when shit hits the fan. Since you can't deny that there is something wrong out there, then you at least can try to do something. This will make you feel better."

Harry hummed. It's not like learning a little bit of everything would help him against somebody as powerful as Voldemort anyway. Before he managed to get away only because he was insanely lucky, but luck had to run out sometime, right? Then he would be left with absolutely nothing to fend for himself.

On the other hand, he had to admit, when Professor Lupin was teaching DADA, he was really feeling good with himself, especially after he managed to create his Patronus. So, even if he only managed to teach himself a very little until the next meeting with the Dark Lord – because they would definitely meet again – it would be still something up his sleeve.

"By the way," his voice brought him out of his thoughts. "You feeling fine? I mean, besides the nightmares?"

Harry shrugged. "I'm no sunshine. At least I'm less... angry, I guess."

Suguro nodded. "Connection to spirits usually influence the mood of the carrier. Anything else?"

"Why are you asking?"

"Because as far as I understand, you were connected to this crap almost your whole life," Suguro explained in the tone, that sounded almost like male version of Hermione. Even the gesticulation was similar. "Human emotions are connected to biochemistry. Basically, your whole organism is so used to add stuff for the emotions inflicted by the spirit that it will still works like it was still stuck to your skull."

"And that means... what exactly?"

"That it could get messy. But hard to tell what kind of messy," Suguro shook his head. "I think over the time it should balance things out, but as you are now, it could get nasty. Like you're trying to drop smoking or some other addictives."

"Just what I need," Harry snickered.

"That's why I want you to stay in contact," Suguro sighed. "Because of all that secrecy you can't get the help usual way, so in worst case scenario I could contact you with a friend of mine. "

"I don't need a shrink, I'm not crazy!"

"Yes, you definitely aren't," Suguro nodded. "But that doesn't change the fact that you were coexisting with an evil spirit and you had a traumatic experience. Experiences, considering what you have told me about you early years."

"I managed to survive!"

"People are not supposed to just survive, you know," Suguro sat down next to him with a heavy sight. "Nor are they supposed to go on on their own. I know that accepting the help is a difficult shit..."

"It's not like I wasn't asking!" Harry shouted. "I tried to contact them, anybody, but they just didn't..."

He was shaking. Shaking, desperately trying not to cry and completely miserable to boot. Ashamed to, he really didn't want people to see him like that. But it was hard to not feel like that when the only answers he received from his friends were short and just telling him to hold on in there and that's everything was going to be fine. Nothing was.

"Hey," Suguro said, carefully placing his hand on Harry's shoulder. "I know it's not okay. But at the moment you are not alone, are you?"

"I just don't understand!"

"There is only a month until next school year," Suguro pointed out. "You can force them into explaining face to face."

"I shouldn't do that in the first place," Harry grunted.

"In the ideal world," Ryuji snickered, but not at him. More like at memory of sorts. "Look, I can't tell you what's going on in heads of your friends. But people are dumb and they tend to avoid situations they don't know how to deal with. It's like hoping the trouble would just go away if you ignore it long enough. Totally not working, but people are doing it anyway."

"You sound like you know what you are talking about," Harry hummed, eyeing him curiously.

Suguro grimaced. "Fell into that trap once," he admitted. "It was messy, but turned okay in the end."

"And how you dealt with it?"

"Screamed at each other for a bit, then we were too occupied by trying not to die," Suguro shrugged. "It was in the middle of really nasty situation, not even an assignment. We all were in school back then and shouldn't be even let close to that sort of things, but shit get messed up everywhere."

Harry blinked. Somehow, that wasn't what he expected to hear. He was waiting for something more… epic, he supposed. Big story about how talking to each other was important, how people were supposed to explain their opinions and how you were supposed to respect their opinion.

"Well, nice to know I was not the only one who got this sort of stuff at school," Harry smiled slightly.

"Were you expecting it?"

He blinked, surprised by the question. "Uh, no? I mean, I knew it was going to be different, because magic and all that, but fight with the Dark Lord definitely wasn't in the guidebook."

Being a national hero wasn't there either. He expected to be just another student, pretty normal and no different than anybody else.

"So here's the difference – I was," Suguro said. "Even before the semester began, I already knew what I was walking into."

That probably was nice, Harry decided. He didn't know if he would make same choice if he was given one. He wasn't going to abandon the magical world in need, but if there was an option to chose something more mundane, he would definitely be grabbing it instantly.

On the other hand, depending on somebody else to act, when people, especially his friends were in danger – that probably would be even more nerve wrecking. Ducking from the curses was definitely easier even if it was painful at times.

"What's done is done," Harry finally said, shrugging. "I can deal with it, so it's fine."

"Try to not do stuff on your own at least," the exorcist grunted. "I already promised to have an eye on you for awhile. If there's a problem or something you can just ask."

Harry nodded slowly. Help from someone who knew what he was doing would be definitely a good thing, Though, how could he keep in touch while at school? That would be rather troublesome for somebody not magical. And there was always the problem with timing – at least a day before receiving an answer, even if the situation was really difficult and no way to make it any faster.

"Obviously," Suguro continued. "I won't be able to always answers the calls, my job has somewhat odd hours, but you can send a text message. I'll call back when I'm free."

"That's... nice." Harry murmured, staring at the ground. "But why are you doing this?"

"Just because? "Suguro smirked. "It's not a pity, I assure you. More like curiosity."

"Curiosity?"

"The magical abilities are really strange concept for me. Not because they let you do the whatever shit you find fancy, but because the connection to the spiritual beings is still half-assed. More than for an usual human, but not strong enough to give you ability to actually see."

"I can see them, since the exorcism," Harry muttered.

"And this in the next reason, why I decided to stick around. It's not very usual occurrence and you can't exactly go and join the True Cross Order to learn how to live with all that," the exorcist sighed deeply. "How are you dealing with that, anyway?"

"Fine," he just shrugged. "Sometimes is hard to not start to gape at them and people are thinking I'm unwell in the head, but that's nothing new."

It was probably a bad thing to say and as far as Harry could tell, but it didn't seem to move his interlocutor all that much. But as far as he know, Suguro liked honesty and was very blunt himself.

"I can probably get my hand on books for you. At least I think I can. Then you would at least know what you are seeing."

"Can't I just borrow yours?" he asked, slightly confused. Hunting down books just for him seemed like overdoing things a bit. Especially since the exorcist was already giving subtle vibe of workaholic, he really didn't want to give him even more stuff to do.

"And you can read Japanese since when?" Suguro snickered.

Harry laughed, blushing slightly. "Right, sorry. That was dumb."

xxx

The man was wearing midnight blue, three-piece suit like a second skin. His face was covered with simple, white mask and he appeared completely out of nowhere at the afternoon of the first day of July.

"And who in the hell are you?" Suguro glared at the intruder, not sure how he was supposed to react. Joseph seemed to be completely fine with this person, whoever it was, but that doesn't mean Suguro was supposed to do the same.

People randomly showing up in the middle of the room usually were not trustworthy. Mephiso taught him this lesson well enough.

"Oh, I'm Septimus," he said with strong, Scottish accent. "Seven, if you prefer."

"That's not meaning anything," he grunted.

"It's fine," Joseph said in gentle voice. "I know Seven quite well. We were actually working together for a few years."

"So what's up with the mask?"

"I'm an Unspeakable," Seven said in a matter of fact voice. "Because of that, I cannot speak of my other life nor show my face."

"I still don't understand a thing," Suguro admitted with a shrug.

"Well, this is quite a long story," Seven said happily. "Since you already know about the magical world, we can skip that ridiculous part about proving magic to be real, yes?"

Suguro blinked. Finally, something that was making sense.

"You see, both of our worlds had some trouble recently in the past. We had a Dark Lord and his Death Eaters on the loose, while you had the Blue Night, am I right?"

He just nodded, letting him continue.

"Because of that, suddenly there was close to none well trained people on your side to fight demons and spirit and we also lost way to many people to keep things in order. Soon, both word started to mix with each other. A stray spirit there, wreaking havoc on poor, stupid wizards, or a stray Dark Lord supporter who bumped into you guys while running away from us. It was a complete mess."

"After we were done with trying to beat each other to a pulp, we found out that cooperation is actually the best way to go."

"Then why the kid had no idea how the Exorcists work?" Suguro pointed out.

"Because not many people knows about it, obviously!" Seven said, like it was elementary knowledge. "We Unspeakables are as independent from our government as you are. But we're unlucky enough to share building with our government. Foolish people, I tell you!"

"So you are lying to your own people?"

"They are too stupid to notice they can't do thing or two on their own. Saw more than once what's left after wizard trying to take down even a low level demon. Quite disgusting and spatters even on the ceiling."

Well, that was a little bit underwhelming, Ryuji decided. On the other hand he saw himself that magical people were not good when dealing with supernatural. On the other hand, they seemed to ignore things like being dead, so…

"On the other hand, we were not expecting their abilities to," Joseph admitted. "While the wiping memory trick was just irritating, the more battle oriented spells were more troublesome.

"Wiping memory?" Suguro asked, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Imagining, that some random dude could pat him with a piece of wood and turn him into a vegetable was disturbing. Way more disturbing, than imagining what could happen on screwed up job; monsters were interested only in tearing people apart and that was easy to deal with. Shared sentiment, really. Manipulating brain on the other hand was just wrong.

"They're using it, so the normal people don't burn them on stakes," Joseph shrugged. "They are a bit... behind the times."

"But still, wiping memory, how's that a good idea at all?"

"Well, it comes with a note to not use it on Occluments and exorcists," Seven shrugged. "An organized mind is not only much more resistant but also capable to spot the modification almost instantly."

"I still don't like where this is heading," Suguro shrugged. Acting like modifying somebody's memories like it was nothing... apparently, the wizard society happily threw all their morality out of the window for the sake of comfortable life.

"It is going to be a mess after the non-magical discovers us," Seven agreed. "But the idiots are so used to threw spells around we can't do much."

"After?"

"Well, the technology is more and more advanced and it's quite hard to cheat on satellites anyway," the Unspeakable said in somewhat bored tone. "I think we have a decade or maybe two before everything is going to fall down."

He didn't seem to be particularly disturbed by this vision, like he didn't really cared for all the secrecy at all. Ironic, considering the fact he couldn't even tell them his real name.

"Anyhow, I wanted to meet with you, because of the boy you mentioned. Harry Potter."

"What about him?"

"Tell me about what you exorcised," Seven demanded, his voice all of sudden deadly serious.

"Harry called it Voldemort," Suguro said, carefully choosing his words. "It was almost like any other malevolent spirit, but it was lacking something."

"Lacking?"

"Like he was incomplete in some way," Suguro tilted his head, thinking. "Or like not everything of him was around."

"And Joseph told me it was hiding in the scar?"

"On the kid's forehead, yeah," Suguro nodded.

"Piece of soul, most curious..." Seven mumbled.

"You know something?"

"Oh, don't mind me!" Seven said quickly, his happy, sing-songy tone back and even more annoying."I'm just standing here, planning murder!"

"Ouch?" Joseph asked, raising slightly his eyebrows.

"Ouch indeed," Seven grunted. "Can you do me a favor and keep an eye on the brat? He's somewhat important, you see, symbol of hope and golden mutton of sorts, you know."

"Gathered that much," Suguro shrugged. "And I promised to be in contact already anyway. Something I should expect?"

"Idiots with magical sticks," Seven wandered across the room with dance in his steps. "And now I'm sorry, but I have to attend to important matters!"

He bowed deeply and then just disappeared with a quiet pop.

"That was... weird," Suguro said after a moment of silence.

"You get used to it."

"Well now at least I know where your lack of temper came from."

"Compared to them, working with you is gloriously boring," Joseph grinned widely. "No offense, of course."

Suguro just shrugged, trying to piece together all the new information he received with things he already knew. The image was turning to be more and more disturbing, especially around Harry. The brat was just a brat, nothing less, nothing more. Yet, the magical world was treating him like some sort of special snowflake, at the same time refusing to give the kid tools that would at least give him a chance. That was just plain unfair.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Hello again! I hoped that this chapter would not turn into another monster, but it's over 9k again. The dumb DB joke is strong in me, it seems. This is also yet another chapter without proofreading - I'm doing as much as I can, but I'm sooner going to memorize the whole thing than spot every single mistake. So, uh - somebody want to help a bit?

**Chapter 4**  
**Two worlds**

Since he ended up in England as so called specialist for the unusual cases, Suguro really shouldn't be surprised when he found orders and the pretty thick file with all the Annexes that went with this particular case.

He expected people to dumb all troublesome stuff on him, but this… was rather underwhelming.

"So..." Suguro raised his eyebrows, looking at the files, then back at Joseph. "Dead bodies are running from the cemetery again."

"Fourth time this month," the older exorcist grimaced. "It's not even funny anymore."

"What's up with this graveyard anyway?"

"Haven't the slightest," Joseph shook his head. "Nothing spectacularly malicious. Fifty years ago a whole family dropped dead, but there were times when carbon monoxide leaks were a pretty usual stuff, so…"

"Maybe somebody is having his fun then?" Suguro chewed on his thumb, thinking. "Through somebody would be able to spot that obsessive-compulsive necromancer by now..."

"And that's exactly the reason why this time they want you to check this out," the older exorcist shrugged. "Maybe you bumped into something similar that's completely foreign to us."

Suguro hummed under his nose. Like somebody expected everything unusual to be of Japanese origins. Even now, he could tell this thing had nothing to do with thing he encountered. Even at the Illuminati's base, the zombies were acting less… weird.

It wasn't the first ridiculous shit he deal with in England and probably wouldn't be last. He didn't really mind, after all he was actually gaining experience and slowly building reputation and these were always good things to have.

"There was once that very irritating group of quickly regenerating zombies," he said. "But they were carefully engineered in a laboratory. I doubt that every body around here was under the same treatment."

"Nah, these are just really fond of jogging."

Suguro sighed and threw the files on the table and stood up, stretching his back.

"Well, let's get these buggers before they decide to stop for a snack somewhere."

The apothecary shop with "special resources" was right across the street. It was owned by an old Chinese couple, who found it very funny to act in the most stereotypical way possible. Suguro was pretty sure they were visiting auction houses pretty regularly, trying to get their hands on the most ridiculous stuff they could find. It was a surprisingly good business plan, since many people were curious and enjoyed the odd experience, even if the real customers were the member of True Cross Order.

They also had a pretty handy system at work, selling "standard packages" with the stuff that was the most commonly used during missions by any sort of exorcist and "exclusive packages" the members of TCO could combine by themselves and order with a short notice.

It definitely dealt with that awkward problem when the shop was full and the exorcist really needed to stock up on holy hand grenades right now.

"This is pretty handy," Suguro admitted, when they both walked out with neatly wrapped boxes of "All About Zombies" spending no more than five minutes in the shop.

"It was different in Japan?"

"To get to the shop you actually had to use a Key…" he shrugged. "So no tourists or other people."

"Well, we don't have a devil on hand, so people here are dealing with this stuff in a different way."

He was speaking the truth. While they still were wearing Keys with them, they were used only in emergencies and most of them were leading to the Doors Room in the hospital or HQ. To travel anywhere else, they simply used more mundane methods. Like public transportation or cars. This forced them to use hunting rifles rather than semi-automatic guns, because a hunting rifle was much easier to explain if somebody got too interested why they were carrying ranged weapons.

Japan really got it easy.

"For bigger hits we actually have ways to transport the good stuff," Joseph explained, tapping the rhythm of cheesy pop song on the wheel, when they were leaving London behind. "You still have to arrive on the spot by yourself, but all the weapons are waiting and ready to use."

"I do prefer my own stuff," Suguro mumbled, watching the view outside the window. "Even if the model is the same, you still need a time to familiarize yourself with it and you usually don't have that time."

"Oh, yeah," Joseph rolled his eyes. "It's hard to forget all that drama, because you couldn't take that bazooka of yours everywhere."

"Hey!" Ryuji protested. "This was the first thing I got a license for! I… I have created bonds!"

"Of course you did," the older exorcist chuckled, which caused Suguro to argue even more.

At least the ride wasn't boring.

When they finally arrived, Suguro couldn't help himself, but gasp. It looked far worse than he imagined. The zombies not only raised from the graved, but they seemed to dig out everything possible on their way. The cemetery looked more like construction site than place of final rest.

"Damn," he murmured, stepped carefully over toppled piece of gravestone. "I really hope we're not the ones to clean up this mess."

"Well, it's the fourth time," Joseph shrugged and looked around. "I really hope somebody would just deluge the whole place with cement, that would make life so much easier!"

"What could made them so lively anyway?" Suguro huffed and knelled near another tombstone. Or what was left of it. It looked like it was blown up, and into tiny pieces too.

Ryuji picked up one of the stones, looking curiously on its edges, trying to guess how exactly it was destroyed. The break was not really a clean cut. While the stone was smooth, the edge was far from being completely straight. He couldn't find any tracks of any sort of ammunition too or any other kind of things that could tear piece of marble apart, but there was nothing.

"Something interesting?"

"Just more weird," Suguro grimaced standing back up. "Zombies wouldn't be able to do that to the gravestones. But I couldn't find traces of soot or anything at all. Like it just decided to randomly explode, or something!"

"Well, at least the area is evacuated," Joseph shrugged.

"How we even explained that?"

"Gas leak."

"On the cemetery?" Ryuji raised his eyebrows.

"The rest of the city is just right next to us," there was another shrug. "Besides, there always could be something underground, right?"

"This is still weird."

"We can always ask Seven if any magical people got crazy on the cemetery lately if he decide to show up,"

"That's fair," Suguro decided.

They wandered around the graveyard for a bit, finding some more completely destroyed gravestones and even one tree broken almost in half as if a thunder smashed right into it, but there was no signs of fire or anything else.

It was strange, but both of them saw way stranger in their previous cases, so they concentrated on looking for runaway zombies. The ground was completely dry because of how hot the past month was and it was hard like a stone too, so following the trait was mostly looking for bits and pieces of things no one sane would like to find on the ground or trying to guess where the scent of rotting bodies was stronger.

"I think they should've put some sort of a tracker in them, after the second time," Suguro grunted.

"Well, we already know they're heading east," Joseph shrugged. "We only need to catch up to them."

Which was just the thing he shouldn't say out loud. The zombies indeed were heading east and in a straight line too, bumping into fences and buildings like really slow flies over and over again before they somehow managed to reach the corner and walk past the obstacle.

For whatever reason, they weren't acting like a normal, honest to god zombie horde; instead of walking in one nice, big group, they seemed to be actually avoid each other, spreading wider and wider.

But the strangest thing was the fact that they didn't turn back when the exorcists showed up. They actually started to walk faster.

Suguro blinked, not quite understanding, why the undead horde was walking in the wrong direction. "It's just me, or these zombies are acting..."

"Weird?" Joseph blinked. He was staring at the merry group of undead, same as his younger partner.

"I think I don't like this word anymore."

"I think we should follow them,"

"That sound just wrong," Ryuji grimaced. "Like a horror movie in reverse."

"At least it's something new."

Suguro just rolled his eyes. Figures that the old man would be so optimistic; the guy was happy pretty much about everything. They walked a bit faster, hoping to reach the zombies before the undead manage to spread out too wide or go too far.

There was just one problem with that.

"They are running," Suguro said, still unable to believe his eyes. He saw many strange things but zombies actually running away from people were definitely the oddest shit ever.

"Well, let's chase them before they get lost somewhere in there," Joseph grunted. "We should do headcount after we're done too, just to be sure."

Suguro grimaced and kicked at a hand that somebody lost on his way. "I think we should count not only the heads."

"Darn, cleaning it up is going to be a drag," the older exorcist grimaced and took out his phone, quickly writing a message. "I'm so happy I'm not leading an esquire group!"

Ryuji snorted. Of course picking up stuff after somebody else was considered a part of training. From this point it seemed to be even funny, even if he remembered all too well how many goo-monsters he chased himself, because nobody else wanted to touch them. No mention how often he ended up in front of the computer, copying report after report, because someone higher up the ladder demanded to have back-ups in electronic version.

But while he was save from the cleaning duty, his job was still running away in the opposite direction. Directions, to be exact.

"I think we should split, before they get too far," Joseph said, grimacing slightly at another dumb horror movie trope that just gone wrong. "Maybe we can force them to regroup!"

"What are we, cowboys?" Ryuji grunted under his breath, but nodded. Rounding them up before they find some way – because there always is a way, experience taught him that – to get past the blockade and wander into the city, was important.

Joseph turned right, while Suguro marched quickly towards the alley on the left, deciding to go after the monster that seemed to be the farthest away.

"Hey, wait!" Ryuji shouted, but the zombie completely ignored him and just keep on walking further between buildings.

"Now that's just wrong!" he shook his head, then followed the monster. "You're doing your job wrong!"

He felt somewhat offended. It was a zombie, after all and it not only wasn't interested on eating him, but was running away from him. The whole situation lacked only loud screams of fear.

"This is ridiculous," Suguro shook his head and then followed the undead, pulling out his gun. Since he couldn't use his bazooka, he started to take a pistol on jobs like this one. It was an old S&amp;W gun, pretty heavy compared to the newer models and the magazine wasn't the biggest around either, but Ryuji found out that he really liked the elegance of older weapon and how sturdy it was.

He continued to follow the lone zombie until he got a view clear enough to risk a shoot. Sadly, while in the "All About Zombies" box ammunition was included, a silencer wasn't and making unnecessary noise didn't seem to be the best idea with enemy that was already running away.

The single shot tore the silent, still air like a thunder and a moment later, a heavy thud of body falling on the ground followed.

"Really need a silencer," Ryuji muttered, already moving on to meet up with his next target, hoping that the zombies would at least stop their escape for a moment. After all, this sort of undead was always fascinated by the loud, sudden noises. On the other hand, being swarmed by the flood of undead who suddenly remembered about eating brains wouldn't be the best thing to do with his life either.

At least the one that got the furthest away was dealt with and now he could try to use slower, but more silent ways of dealing with this sort of stuff. Considering how quiet it was on Josephs side, the man decided to use sacred seals – or binding ones – to deal with his part of the job.

Suguro grunted and looked around for some nice spot from where he could roughly estimate which road the zombies would choose to follow. After that, he set up a barrier with a handful of paper seals, slapping them on the walls of the buildings and a two lampposts.

It was easier than drawing the whole thing with chalk on the ground. Cleaner too. Besides, he still had to wait around, to put the final one and imprison the undead in a nice ring of protection from evil. Shame they couldn't take any grenades, tossing one in the middle of it would be a god way to finish the job.

Soon enough, the zombies were smashing into an invisible wall, unable to cross a border set up with the seals and he jumped out of his hideout to slap the final one on the trashcan.

"Try to go somewhere now," he smirked, then pulled out his phone and quickly turned on the GPS to mark their position, ignoring the moans of confused zombies. With a group imprisoned in a sphere like that one he could deal later or even leave it for a group of esquires that happened to be on the cleaning duty. A bit of experience was always a good thing for the newbies and this was probably one of the safest way for an Aria beginner to try his skills out.

After Ryuji marked where he left the now very dead undead too, he continued to wander around, trying to find more of them. Some couldn't be spotted from the higher ground, getting stuck in the most ridiculous places and bushes or even falling inside the buildings through windows.

He found another zombie nowhere else, but on the roof of one of the buildings. That one without fire escape on the outside.

"What the fuck are you even doing there?" Suguro groaned. "And how in the world you even climbed so high?!"

Naturally, there was no answer.

Ryuji grit his teeth. He couldn't just leave it for later, standing there and making noise. Even if these zombies seemed to be dumber than usual and not very aggressive, their behavior could change. The demons usually were pretty unpredictable and even the most common of them still could surprise people in rather nasty way. And he hadn't a clear shot either.

Looking around, he didn't managed to find any ladder or stairs leading to the rooftop, the doors to the house itself were also closed. But there was a nice, big trashcan by the side of the building, so it was probably the way zombie managed to get on the roof. Ryuji followed, carefully climbing onto the trashcan and then pull himself up, swallowing cursewords. He was really high and still got trouble with getting up. How in the world something as clumsy as undead managed to get there?

The zombie itself was standing on the other side of the roof, a few steps from the edge, staring at some point in the east for no reason that Suguro could come up with.

Ryuji exhaled slowly and carefully looked around, trying to not lose sight of the zombie for any second. He could spot with ease Joseph moving around in hundred meters or so, trying to scare off two undead from their path and led them towards dead end instead.

Several more were still walking down the streets, still heading more or less in one direction.

He had to deal with them and fast, but before that…

Suguro once again pulled his gun out. He started reciting the holy texts, trying to pinpoint a fatal verse, his voice steady and eyes looking for any sort of a reaction. For over a minute, there was no difference in the undead behavior at all.

Then, all of sudden, it turned towards him, the motion way faster than Ryuji anticipated. He instantly raised his gun and aimed, pulling the trigger in a split of second later. The zombie suddenly swayed, almost like it tripped over its own feet, the bullet flying over it.

"Oh, now you want to fight?!" Suguro growled, aiming again. The blasted thing threw him out of rhythm, so the few last lines he recited were useless and it seemed that there was no time to repeat them at all.

He pulled the trigger again, but the zombie suddenly launched at him, jumping high in the air, so the bullet only nicked its right foot. The undead landed right next to him and tried to grab him instantly, completely ignoring the wound. Suguro stepped back, avoiding the hands with dark, broken fingernails reaching for him, and then he made another step, trying to move towards the middle of the flat rooftop they were on. Fighting right on the edge was dumb, trying to shoot the enemy in the point black range wasn't the best idea either, at least not when said enemy was trying to bite your face off. Ryuji, after few steps found himself on the edge again, forced to dodge a vicious streak when the zombie threw itself at him again.

The damage done to its foot had to be more severe than he estimated, because something suddenly cracked and the undead lost its balance right after that last jump, hitting Ryuji with the whole weight of its body instead of an outstretched arm.

And then, they both fell.

Ryuji hit the ground with heavy impact that forced air out of his lungs. The zombie landed right on top of him, reaching towards his face almost instantly. He grabbed the monster by the shoulder, trying to keep it at distance, while rasping out holy verses.

He wasn't even entirely sure if he was really saying the words, because all the sound seemed to be muted almost completely.

He finished right before his elbow bend under the weight of the monster, dark spots dancing before his eyes, mixing with the ashes the zombie turned into, before it disappeared into nothingness.

"Suguro!" Joseph voice ringed in his eyes.

"I'm okay!" he managed to wheezed out, while still lying on the ground.

The world was still slightly spinning before his eyes and breathing was troublesome; he actually had to force his chest to move.

"You definitely don't sound alright," the other exorcist stated critically.

Ryuji just cursed under his breath and started to get up, using his elbow to push himself up.

"Hey!" Joseph growled. "Should you really move?"

"I'm fine," Suguro coughed. "I'm just out of breath."

"Well, that happen when people fall down from the roofs," Joseph grunted. "And you are bleeding too."

Suguro blinked. To think about it, his left hand felt a little funny.

He coughed again and raised it, so he could get a better look. The sleeve was torn and he could see a long gash on his forearm. It was bleeding, but looked rather shallow otherwise.

"I must have bumped into something on my way down."

"You sure?" There was another question hidden in there.

"It didn't chew on me, I just got knocked out for a moment."

"That shouldn't happen in the first place," Joseph grunted, then helped him to stand up. "Well, at least you don't seem to be concussed. just dumb. And I think you need stitches."

Ryuji bit his tongue and just let the older man scold him all the way he wanted to. He was right, after all, Suguro screwed this one royally, because he wasn't thinking at all. Just chasing the enemy, falling right into dumbest sort of accident and only by miracle didn't break his own neck. Death by falling down the roof with a zombie on top definitely wasn't what he wanted on his gravestone.

"Just give me a minute," Ryuji mumbled, reaching to one of the many pockets of his coat. "I've got bandage on me, I'll wrap it up and we can finish the job here."

The older exorcist rolled his eyes with visible irritation, but waited for him anyway. He didn't help him get up, though. The rest of the mission was uneventful; they managed to finish what they started and trapped undead in a magical circle before they exorcised them back where evil spirits belonged. Joseph was angry when they were finishing the job and continued on being angry when they returned home.

Suguro didn't say a word while the older man kept on ranting about his stupidity. After all, Joseph was right.

"Shirt off," he demanded. "I want to look at your back, to make sure you're only bruised."

Ryuji obediently took it off, trying to not agitate his wound or move too much. He wasn't sure what was hurting more, his hand or his back.

They started with the hand, but Suguro wasn't sure if he was happy about that. Angry Joseph happened to be also a sadistic bastard and not delicate at all.

"Stop wincing and be happy we don't have to go to the hospital," he grunted. "They surely would love to hear your story..."

"Can you knock it off already?" Suguro hissed through his teeth, when Joseph generously covered his forearm with antiseptic. "I know already that I'm one dumb shit, you can stop repeating it over and over again!"

"You really think I will stop this soon?" Joseph raised eyebrows, then returned to his work. "But honestly, that's really lucky. Butterfly or three and we're done."

"By just looking at you I'm starting to think that getting stitches is not that bad idea..." Ryuji murmured.

"Oh, man up!"

The next five minutes were full of pain and Suguro breathed out with relief when Joseph finished wrapping a new bandage around the wound.

it was really short relief, since right after that the other exorcist switched to poking and prodding, checking out if Suguro's ribs weren't broken. They were whole, but his back was way to tender for treating like that.

"You probably should go sleep it over," Joseph finally said with a sigh. "You looks like a shit."

"That sound like a good idea," Ryuji said, too tired to argue.

"Don't bother yourself with the reports, I can do that on my own."

"Thanks."

"Just cut the dumb act already."

Suguro dropped on the bed with a groan.

Sleeping could be a problem, since he definitely wasn't laiyng on his back anytime soon. Sleeping on his side would be an issue too, not only because of his arm, but his shoulders weren't in the best condition too.

He dropped on his stomach, trying to find the most comfortable position, not sure if he would manage to sleep at all.

It took no more than fifteen minutes, sound of flames lulling him to sleep.

xxx

"What happened to you?" was the first thing that fell out of Harry Potter's mouth, because of course everybody just had to ask that.

"Job?" Suguro shrugged. Honestly, he wasn't looking all that bad. A few visible bruises here and there, bandaged forearm and medical gauze covering his left cheekbone. Honestly, he lucked out with mere scratches but people were completely overreacting the whole thing.

"You look like somebody seriously beaten you up," Dudney pointed out, eyeing the exorcist.

"And from where would you know that, Big D?" Harry couldn't stop himself from elbowing his cousin. While Dursleys suddenly decided to turn into somewhat decent people, he wasn't planning on making it easy for them. It was very childish and he shouldn't do that at all, but a little innocent vengeance wouldn't hurt anybody too seriously.

"Oh, bug off, Pothead!"Dudley grunted and showed his bulky hands down his pockets, sulking.

Suguro fought hard to not laugh.

"So, uh..." Harry started awkwardly. "Something new?"

"Besides the bruises?"

"Uh, yeah. It was a few days since last time, wasn't it?" he pointed out.

They exchanged a few messages, but besides that, Suguro was rather occupied with work and trying to stay on top of his studies.

It was all rather exhausting, so meeting the brats was rather nice change.

"I'm not sure if I hate more people who steals all the bodies from the cemetery or when the bodies runs away on their own," Suguro grunted.

"Why somebody would steal the bodies?" Harry gasped, slightly grossed out.

"Zombies are real?" Dudley was more interested in the other thing entirely.

"And are kind of annoying," Suguro agreed.

"So what, one of these bit you, or something?"

"Nah," he winkled his nose and looked away, like he was embarrassed. "It pushed me out of the roof."

"Why were you fighting zombies on the roof?"

"That's the question I'm asking myself," Suguro cringed. He, and everybody else he knew. "Anyhow, my back is killing me, so the gym wouldn't be the brightest idea in the next few days."

"I'm actually surprised you're even here," Harry murmured. He knew from the first hand experience that falling down was not the best thing to happen. Even with the cushioning charms on the grass during Quidditch matches and trainings, the players were in pain, especially on the day after. But they were landing on magical grass and had all sort of spells to magic the bruises and broken bones away. Suguro looked like it wasn't grass he landed on. "Shouldn't you be lying down or something like that?"

"Don't be ridiculous," the exorcist snorted. "I'm fine. And we can visit someplace else instead the gym."

"Should I say "halleluiah" or it's too soon?" Dudley mumbled.

"Decide for yourself," Suguro shrugged. "We're just going to visit a shooting range. I checked the place out before, it's pretty decent."

"You serious?"

"Why not?" Ryuji shrugged. "People are doing it all the time. "

"Why exorcist needs a gun anyway?"

"I told you it is possible to exorcise evil spirits with firearms," Suguro said dryly. "I wasn't lying. We really do that."

"I'm so happy right now that you decided to exorcise me in more traditional way!"

"Dude, you have a gun?" Dudley gasped. "Like license and all?"

"Well... yeah?" Suguro blinked, not exactly sure what all that was about. A gun was just a gun, nothing to be excited about.

"Do you think a gun would even work against magical people?" Harry asked slowly, scratching his chin. The wizarding world seemed to be completely oblivious about muggle technology and everything else too, considering how they looked like during the Quidditch Match the year before. On the other hand, nobody ever told some sort of a dumb anecdote about a wizard meeting a Muggle with a shotgun or something like that. And it would be really hard to not to be aware about stuff that was falling from the skies sixty years ago – wizards usually lived longer, so many of them should remember.

"Well, nobody would expect that."

"I don't think how I feel about shooting people to the death," Harry murmured.

"You can always target his knee," Suguro shrugged. "Getting shoot in a knee would definitely stop evil warlock from waving his stick around."

"I don't even know how to shoot those!"

"No time like now to learn," Ryuji smirked.

Harry wasn't sure if he really wanted to learn how to use a gun, but Dudley was really excited about the whole thing. Besides, trying out new stuff wasn't going to hurt him, especially not when under supervision of people who actually knew what they were doing.

The gun feel odd an unnatural in his hand, all rough shapes, heavy and lacking any sort of grace. The goggles and headphones weren't any better, their weight was making him even more uncomfortable, but Suguro just wouldn't let them take them off even for a moment while at shooting range.

At least Dudley seemed to have fun, even if he missed every single shot, once or twice only managing to hit the piece of paper where the target was drawn.

"This is much more difficult than in the movies," Harry commented, trying to point his weapon at the target. His hands were shaking, even if he wasn't nervous at all.

"Quite," Suguro agreed and then corrected his stance again. Apparently, how he was standing on his legs was much more important that in the wizarding world, where one could duel while sitting if somebody was stubborn enough. The exorcist demonstrated already how easy it was to knock somebody down if he keeps his legs wrong and Harry decided to memorize at least that.

At least casting spells made his accuracy a bit better and most of the shots actually reached the paper, even if only two managed to get past the outer ring of the target.

After they were done, Suguro walked them back home.

And "walked" was a key word that Dudley really started to hate. It was always a trap, but apparently even beaten up exorcist still could wipe the floor with them without any sort of trouble.

Dudley sat down on the bench with a heavy sigh. Then he eyes his cousin and Suguro, feeling pang of jealously.

How these two managed to walk and walk and then walk some more and not even being out of breath. Totally unfair.

At least they stopped somewhere for a snack and it actually was something edible and not these damned grapefruits again. They both still reminded Dudley to choose the diet version of sandwich. At least they were decent enough to buy the same stuff, so he wasn't suffering that much.

Suguro crumbled a little bit of bread and threw it on the ground next to the curb. Harry was eyeing that place too, so Dudley followed. The tiny pieces of bread were disappearing slowly. He would completely miss that, if he wasn't with these two.

"There is something there, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yup," Harry nodded. "And it would be kinda cute, if not... uh, whatever is sticking out of it."

"Is this hard?"

"What exactly are you asking?" Suguro tilted his head.

"Seeing these things," Dusley eyed the disappearing bread again.

"I can't really tell," he admitted. "I was aware of their existence my whole life. Seeing them was just a natural thing, I guess. You eventually get used to them too."

Harry nodded in agreement.

"First few days I probably looked like an idiot," he admitted. "But they really don't mind you. Unless they want food."

"You were always the weird one anyway," Dudley shrugged. "No offence."

"None taken," Harry smirked.

They fed the invisible monsters for some more time, enjoying the evening when the day was finally cooling down.

Of course, the universe just had to remind Ryuji once more, this time using one Vernon Dursley, about that dumb mistake of his.

"You! What in the world happened to you?!"

"Fell down the roof while fighting zombies?"

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"You, uh... you are not joking, are you?"

"No," Suguro sighed deeply. Everybody would probably keep asking about it until his bruises disappear completely. This was going to be a very long week.

xxx

They fell into comfortable routine, waking up early when it wasn't as hot as for rest of the day and wandered to the gym. Sometimes they've meet up with Suguro in there, the other times they were on their own. Dudley definitely preferred the later, because for all the awe his cousin hold towards the Japanese guy and his muscles, Suguro was just too much of a slave driver. Some other times they meet up with the exorcist in the evening, it all depended on his rather full schedule.

Harry discovered with a bit of surprise that his cousin wasn't just a dumb oaf and Dudley sometimes acted like it was a surprise for him too. When he wasn't struggling with not buying sweets when there was a chance to munch something away from hawk eyes of Aunt Petunia, at least.

Just when things finally stopped being ridiculously awkward between them, the evening of the second day of August happened. If not for Mrs. Figg, who pretty much dragged them home after the terrifying experience of meeting the Dementors, they would probably ended up hiding on one of the trees in the park, because there was a slight chance that the blasted creatures didn't know how to climb.

At least, Harry decided with a grimace, the misadventures of the third year at Hogwarts happened to be useful and he knew what to do to stop himself and his cousin from feeling like a miserable balls of depression.

But the bliss of chocolate didn't last for long as well. The Ministry of Magic made sure of that.

"Well," Vernon said, carefully putting the letter back on the table. He was acting like the piece of paper was about to bit him any moment. "This is rather odd."

"Just odd?" Harry protested. "They were acting like I was second coming of fucking Jesus and now they want me out!"

"Language," Vernon barked automatically.

"They are crazy anyway, I was telling you that the whole time," Aunt Petunia said. "You can always go to school somewhere else."

"It would be hard without a wand."

"It's just a stick, you can always get another one," Uncle Vernon just shrugged. "Or you can just ignore the idiots and let them deal with their problems alone. Of course then it would have to be school for kids that are a little bit...uh, late."

Harry grimaced.

But his uncle was right, the magical education while fascinating and full of fireworks was definitely lacking when it came to math and many other subjects. He skimmed once through Dudley books and found himself slightly disturbed at how little he was able to understand. And he was good at math before he started Hogwarts!

"Whatever," he grunted. "What I don't understand is why they are going to break my wand. There were Dementors! They aren't supposed to be around where people live!"

"There shouldn't be that whatever it was on your head in the first place," Vernon cut in.

There was no response to that and Harry knew it well. He tried, for really long, to find a reason why magical people – Dumbledore – let him wander around with a piece of Voldemort stuck to his forehead, but there just wasn't a good answer for that. Either they all were absolutely oblivious to something that was really easy to spot for trained eye, which was disturbing thought on itself or for whatever reason they decided to left it there. Maybe they just didn't know how to take it off, the magical world wasn't mixing well with mundane one in the first place, so having wizards cooperating with exorcists was just wishful thinking…

All the other reasons were too much terrifying to think about.

The notify from the Ministry of Magic about him getting thrown out of school wasn't the only one. Soon after, a very short note from Mr. Weasley showed up and not half of an hour after that another one from the Ministry – this one telling him that he actually will get a chance to say a thing in his defense before they throw him out anyway.

"That counts as slightly better, yes?" Uncle Vernon asked, trying to stay away from the piece of parchment. While he was much, much more tolerant towards anything strange and Harry than he was even before, he still got his issues with touching stuff he considered as weird.

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "I think so, at least."

"Then shoo!" Vernon decided. "You both looks like you're going to drop at anytime, and God help me, I'm not going to drag anybody upstairs!"

They both snickered, but did as they were ordered anyway. There was no point in arguing and besides, they needed the rest anyway.

At least Harry was sure of it when he dropped on his bed. But the sleep wasn't coming to him and stirring in his sheets was just pointless. He groaned and sat down, running fingers through his hair.

Why, in the Merlin's name, his life has to sucks this much?!

A sudden movement startled him a little, but there was nothing to be afraid of anywhere near.

"You fine?" Dudley asked awkwardly, standing in the doors. He probably couldn't sleep either, still haunted by whatever he saw, when the Dementors showed up. Harry was a bit curious, because his cousin was living a very sheltered life, but decided not to ask. The darkest thoughts were always the most private. Demanding that sort of answer so short after they managed to patch a little relations between themselves weren't the best idea.

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "You?"

"Could be better," he grimaced. "And the doctor is going to murder me for breaking my diet, you know."

"That sucks," Harry grimaced.

"Yeah," Dudley mumbled. "Not like I can tell him that I was attacked by soul sucking ghost and that chocolate is the only antidote. Damn, that actually sounds even more ridiculous when you say it out loud!"

"Well, on the other hand you're getting way more exercise than they expected you to have."

"That doesn't change the fact that somebody is going to be charged with murder because of that chocolate. "

They laughed a bit, even if it was just a poor excuse of a joke. Laughter, even nervous was better than awkward silence, or stressing how terrifying the whole situation was.

"You going to call Suguro?" Dudley asked after a few moments.

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "I'm not sure how his kind mix with Dementors, so I should warn him about them."

"Think there might be more?" his cousin voice cracked a bit, heavy with fear.

"Haven't the slightest, sorry," he miserably shook his head.

"That sucks," Dudley grimaced. "I don't even have idea in what direction to run."

"You hadn't even the idea to run in the first place."

"Point," Dudley nodded.

xxx

Ginny wasn't sure if she was excited by moving for the rest of the summer to some old mansion of very ancient magical family, or just irritated by being forced to get used to another place.

It would be an adventure, definitely. But at the same time, there wouldn't be anything new. She was going to be surrounded by her brothers anyway and parents would act even more embarrassing than usual, cooing over her while other people were around. Ginny wasn't just a little girl anymore. She could tough it out if needed.

So she just acted like she didn't care much at all, while entering this old, strange place, where the shadows were moving in darkness, whispering to each other in raspy voices.

All the others, seemed to be oblivious to the shadows moving around them, but it wasn't anything new. It was just like home, only the black was blacker here, flourishing in gloomy atmosphere of abandoned building.

Like her brothers, she was tasked with all the boring, mundane jobs - dusting, degnoming, cleaning up the mess in the rooms after adults were done with shooing away things more serious, like boggarts.

"What are we, house elves?" Ron groaned, after he was handed another cloth and pointed in direction of newly cleared room. They were actually supposed to celebrate since this would be a second bedroom for their use, which meant that there would be no more squishing together like sardines in a can, but Ron was Ron. He just really liked to be grumpy if somebody told him to work.

"Well, we can't use our wands, Ronniekins," George grinned.

"So they have to utilize us in some other way," Fred added. " So be a good house elf and get to work. Chop chop!"

"You just hope for us to do all the work, don't you?"

"Yup."

Ginny groaned.

Like it wasn't bad enough like it was. Mom was constantly breathing down her back, checking every fifteen minutes if she was okay... when she wasn't hissing at her to go away, because adults were talking about important secretive stuff and she wasn't old enough. At least boys were treated the same way.

Besides her family, the constant occupant of this place was no one else than Sirius Black, the not-mass murderer, who was always trying to either get murdered by Snape - who showed himself up from time to time - or just get drunk. He couldn't because every time mom was able to catch him with his hand on the bottle and then she was taking the bottle away, no matter how loud he was whining about it.

To tell the truth, life was more than just unfair to Sirius, forcing him to live in the house he hated the most, just after spending twelve years in the most terrible prison in the world. Ginny was also pretty sure that the man was much less sane than the rest of adult wizards actually believed. Dark things were changing how one viewed life, but nobody could really understand how much until he meet his own darkness. There wasn't even point in trying to explain all the things that suddenly changed. She tried.

Ginny learned how to shrug and left things unsaid, because it was so much easier. And when she wasn't trying to talk, the people acted like she actually got better, healed or something like that.

Liars, both of us, she thought and shook her head, before binding her hair in a tight but messy bun and went to the kitchen in search for fresh rag. After all the alive – or not – magical stuff was done, there was also need of plain simple cleaning. It would be faster with spells, but mom couldn't be everywhere. And all the things needed solid scrubbing by hand from time to time too.

Besides, thank to doing her work right she got more opportunities to listen on adults than anybody else; after a few days of observing her obedient behavior the adults stopped being so suspicious and at times even didn't notice her.

Because of that, she happened to be around, when dad jumped out of the fireplace like he was burning for real, looking shaken and scared.

"Arthur?" Mom looked at dad with worried eyes. "Did something happen at work?"

"If only," he sighed. "Look, I really need to talk to Dumbledore and now. I couldn't Floo him from the job, because of all that mess, but..."

Dad shook his head. "just tell me, do you know where Dumbledore is? In his office?"

"So what happened, Arthur?" Sirius jogged up to them.

"Harry got the warning for using magic around Muggles," he said quickly.

"Huh?" Ginny blinked. "But why? He knows that he can't do that!"

"Well, I'm sure he got some really important reason for using magic. A Patronus charm, no less!"

"Patronus?" Molly asked, a bit too shocked for a moment to actually grasp the fact that her daughter was not only in the room but taking active role in the conversation no less. "But why would he use that?"

"Well," Ginny said slowly. "Maybe he was trying to force us to tell something? I mean, all these letters..."

"Ginny, darling, you know what Professor Dumbledore said, right?"

"Well, I do," she shrugged. "But I think you guys forget to tell Harry why it was so important."

"I'm not sure if Remmy told him Patronuses even can carry stuff," Sirius scratched his chin. Hermione, who sneaked up into the room right behind him, nodded.

The Dementors were too big of a deal to actually think of any other uses for Patronus spell beyond keeping these dark creatures at bay. Besides, Harry was struggling with it to the last moment and all the last year was occupied with that disaster of a tournament instead of something that actually to be useful for him.

Molly shook her head."But if that's the case, then why he used it at all?"

"Maybe he wanted to scare that pig of a cousin away?" Sirius proposed with a shrug. "I would be pretty startled if a giant stag would charge at me out of nowhere… and that brat seems to be a petty damn coward, if you ask me."

"All he needed to do that was to say "Alacazam" or something like that," Hermione snorted. "Besides, he knows better than that!"

"I've already send him a note to not go anywhere if he receive a warning from the Ministry," Arthur ran fingers through his hair in nervous gesture, almost knocking off glassed out of his nose. "I just hope everything will end up fine."

"Honestly, this is very awful of them, looking for a reason to terrorize that poor boy!" Molly shook her head. "And in times like these no less!"

"And if there were Dementors in Little Whining?" Sirius growled. "Then what? And why the hell they were there in the first place?!"

"I don't know!" Arthur put his glasses back in their place. "That's why I need to talk to Dumbledore, the situation is already really tense!"

"It's just a warning, right?"

"No," he shook his head. "It's way worse than that. Two years ago Harry already received one and then there was that case with his aunt last year! The Ministry went straight for the big spells!"

"What are they planning to do?" Hermione asked slowly, gulping. With all that bad press about Harry, she had a really bad feeling about this.

Ginny wasn't sure if she wanted to hear the answer either and carefully eyed the other girl and then adults in the room, almost hoping that somebody would remember that kids are not supposed to hear dark things.

"They want to break. his wand and expel him from school"

"They can't do that!" Hermione gasped. "This is awful!"

"Why are they doing that? He's... he's Harry!" Ginny choked on her words too. The one and only Boy Who Lived, a hero of Magical Britain, the one there was so much stupid books about suddenly was degraded from heroic figure to some sort of street hooligan, just because of dumb things like politics. He wasn't even old enough to actually do stuff like that! It wasn't a basilisk either, he couldn't just go and stab in the eye to cause it stop being so annoying. But then how he was supposed to survive this situation?

"That's the problem," Arthur sighed. "They just don't want believe that's Vol... that's he's back."

"But throwing him out of school? Isn't this too much?" Hermione groaned.

"I'm sure Dumbledore will find a way out of it," he said. Then grabbed a handful of the Floo powder and departed away, leaving them nervous and scared.

Luckily, Professor Dumbledore was able to act quickly and efficiently. Just a few minutes and the sentence hanging over Harry's head was changed from breaking his wand instantly to letting him prove his innocence in several days.

They all breathed out in relief, but the situation was far from over. The answers were desperately needed, not only about the possibility of the Dementors being in so muggle place as Privet Drive, but about who let Harry being attacked too.

Bunch of other adults joined the conversation, showing up at the Grimmaur Place few minutes apart from each other. There was Tonks and Moody and a handful of Aurors Ginny didn't really knew by name. They all sat down by the huge table in unwelcoming and gloom dining room, which temporary acted as a command center. The bright stains on walls, where once portraits of members of Ancient and Noble House of Black only added to how uncomfortable everyone felt in this place. It at times felt like the empty places were staring at people with accusation in their eyes, but without voicing opinion out loud, like that loud painting right by the entrance.

"Who let that happen in the first place?" Sirius shook his head. "I through you people were watching him!"

"We were watching him!" A very young Auror woman stood up, blush creeping on her cheeks when she was trying to defend herself and all the other people with guarding duty. Ginny liked her, but knew only a little about her; only that she was Sirius cousin, could change her appearance at will and preferred to go by her last name.

"Then how in the Merlin's name you managed to miss something like that?!"

"How in the world should I know?" Tonks protested. "I mean, we were observing his house constantly, and there's that charming old squib across the street too!"

"Charming?"

"She's constantly offering me cookies."

"Cookies!" Sirius growled. "Dementors could be wandering right next to his house and you're talking cookies!"

"I do believe it was Mundungus turn?"somebody added helpfully, probably hoping for keeping Black for turning into a dog and trying to show his disapproval through biting people. He already tried that once, when the Order just moved in and they were about to start cleaning job. It wasn't pretty.

"Mundungus!" this time it was Molly who gasped with sheer disgust. "You let that sort of a man anywhere near Harry? What were you thinking?"

"Mung is an useful man…" one of the Aurors started carefully.

"He's a criminal, for Merlin sake!" Sirius growled. Then stopped for a moment, realizing how awkward it end up coming out of his mouth. "A real one, anyway!"

Before they really started a fight, there was a loud crack in the air and suddenly Dumbledore was in the room, his arm wrapped protectively around shoulders of an old, delicate looking woman. She was wearing slippers and her grey hair seemed need both a comb and a bath.

"I see you started without me," he noted, eyeing everybody with amused smile.

"The situation is quite troublesome, " the same Auror as before decided to voice his opinion. "And we're all very worried."

"Everything is going to be fine, I'm sure of it," Professor Dumbledore said warmly, then let the woman to one of the free seats. "This is my dear friend Arabella. She happened to be in the right place to see everything."

"Then why didn't she do anything?" Molly frowned, looking at her with a distance.

"I'm a squib, dearie."

"Oh!" she gasped, putting hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry!"

The old woman just waved at her, letting it go. It was probably not the first time she went through this awkward point of the conversation, when the wizards and witches were clueless how to act around somebody who was unable to cast a spell.

"Please, Arabella, tell us everything you now. Maybe we can find some sort of answer," Dumbledore said smiling kindly, and gesturing towards the sofa.

Arabella nodded stiffly, then sat down carefully, on the edge, like she was afraid that the antique sofa was about to bite her any time.

"The boy seemed to be in very poor mood after he arrived back home," she started.

Dumbledore was the only one who didn't cringe after that.

"That understandable," he said softly. "He went through much, after all. Please, continue."

The old woman nodded and started telling the tale of how life in Privet Drive went, with all the details she managed to squish in.

"A little while ago a young man started showing up, I believe he's a friend of Dudley," she continued. "Quite scary looking, I must admit, but that boy was always looking for trouble, so I'm not that surprised."

"But they didn't hurt Harry, right?" Molly asked, quite worried. She was telling Albus and anybody else who wanted to listen that the Dursleys were never a good family for such sweet kid like Harry and she was afraid for the boy. Had a reason to do so too, considering how much he needed the rescue from their house before second year of Hogwarts even began.

"No, no!" Arabella shook her head. "It's more like the boys finally found the common ground and are constantly going somewhere together."

"Yeah," Moody grimaced. "Which made looking after him all that more troublesome. Honestly, giving him house arrest would prevent any sort of trouble!"

"Alastor, how can you say things like that!" Molly scolded him. "It's a boy, he need to move! Sitting in the house is unhealthy!"

"Whatever," the Auror grunted. "What's done it's done."

Arabella continued her story about boys doing boyish things. Before she got to the part with Dementors, she managed to really bore the Order members.

"They really were there, the Dementors," Arabella said, her voice slightly shaking with emotions. "Horrible creatures! The boys barely managed to escape and only because of the Patronus Charm!"

"It was only Mr. Potter and young Mr. Dursley who were attacked?"

"Yes," Mrs. Figg nodded again. "Dudley's new friend was showing up every few days. I think he is studying some muggle thing, so he can't be around all the time..."

"Whatever, who would care about some Muggle anyway," Alastor grunted.

"Well, the danger to Mr. Potter can go from any direction, isn't it right?"

"I'll sooner become a ballerina than Death Eaters would invite some Muggles to play," Alastor snorted.

"I do have agree," Molly added. "We have other things to worry about."

"I'm sure I can work something out at the Ministry," Dumbledore.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Hello again! I'm really grateful for all the reviews and other forms of support! It's really crazy how many people decided to follow this story, I never expected something like that!  
Right now, I'm slowly going through editing stuff that was already published - no changes in the storyline, just making the chapters more readable.  
I'll try to keep up the updates monthly, but the next one might be late - I'm going to be pretty occupied with real life.

**Chapter 5**  
**A Curious Case Of A Very Bored Goat**

Not being on the active duty didn't mean that Ryuji had all the time he wanted just for himself.

Actually, it was a reason why he was spending even more time working by the desk. Now he understood perfectly well why teach Okumura had always energy drinks on hand. This stuff was hopelessly boring.

At least when he was talking his face of about demons of Japanese origins his audience wasn't bunch of inexperienced kids but full fledged exorcists, so he was spared all the dumb questions. Well, most of them. When he wasn't at job he was supposed to rest from, he was either trying to not get thrown out of school, or he was keeping himself in shape and trying to have eye on Harry. At least Suguro was able to mix together the last two things together, otherwise he would be forced to drop sleeping.

How exactly Joseph imagined it to be resting?

Suguro shook his head. The old exorcist was probably just getting his petty revenge out of it.

He groaned, then continued on typing. He wanted the whole case about the zombies - well, excluding his stupid fall - archived and accessible for the rest of his group. Maybe someone would be able to tell him, why these undead suckers were so eager to jog around the town, no matter how many times they were send to the other side.

Shortly after finishing the cram school and officially gaining their first Meisters, they happened to have more and more missions in pairs instead as a whole group. Sometimes not even that, instead of working with people they weren't even familiar with. Konekomaru decided that it was time to put some sort of a system together. Soon enough a database was created, easily accessible to all of them, no matter where they were.

It was a good way to check out if the others were fine too. After some mishaps with very badly placed calls - for example right in the middle of mission that required stealth - Neko added a function that automatically showed up list of people that were active for the last twenty-four hours.

It was really useful, especially after they started to travel further and further away.

/Even zombies are running at your sight?

It was a reaction he pretty much expected, but still snarled at the screen.

/Rin, if you have nothing important to share then get out.

/Rude!

/You bring it on yourself. Bon, I do not know how somebody would be able to summon familiars for distance long enough to not be visible.

/Could there be a summoning ring somewhere on that graveyard?

/If that was the case then this would have occurred long time ago. It was only a month since they started to rise.

/Fair point. Send the history of that place, not only the graveyard, I'll try to find something similar.

Ryuji groaned. Great. While he hadn't anything specific about spending a lot of time in the libraries, he really had enough work by the desk right now. But no choice now. Once Miwa set his mind onto something, there was no turning back, so the archives it was. Maybe he could talk somebody with esquires under his wing to lend a hand?

He scratched his chin. Definitely worth a try, the new recruits needed to learn how to search for important things through lots and lots of useless data after all.

"I'm getting lazy," Ryuji groaned, stretching his arms. "Way too much time with the idiot!"

It really wasn't Suguro's fault that he got stuck with Rin for almost a year, since he could control him almost as good as the other Okumura. Or so Mephisto said. It was probably either him or Angel and really, everything was better than leaving Rin anywhere near the Paladin. There was many more reasons for putting them on one team, starting with the origins of Kurikara to the fact that their Meisters were a neat combination.

After spending so much time it wasn't all that strange for something to rub in, no matter how irritating it was.

Ryuji hoped that Rin at least got something annoying out of it too, otherwise it just wouldn't be fair.

He tapped an quick answer and turned the computer off. He had people to hunt down.

xxx

Hunting down exorcist involved in some way with esquires and pages was pretty simple; he had to just wait in the kitchen for somebody to show up.

It was probably the biggest room in the whole building, because some bright soul decided, that smashing the walls between two different flats on the ground floor was a good idea.

Besides, it definitely made moving inside the whole building way less complicated.

And turned the kitchen into the main common area. There even was not one but two wide tables by the wall and a bunch of chairs - each one completely different from another - and two ovens, so nobody would fight over a cooking place. On the other hand, nobody was really interested in cooking at all and were living mostly on TV-Dinners and take-outs. Besides tea, because these people for some strange reason found proving the stereotypes to be right utterly hilarious.

Suguro sat down by the table and continued to work on his next presentation about oriental demons. While he had a chance to drop one job on somebody else, there was no reason for not working on another one while he had some time on hand. If he had unlucky day today, then he would just wind up with materials for another one or two session ready to go at any time.

"Fancy seeing you here," and he didn't end up waiting for really long at all.

Suguro smiled. "Same goes for you, May."

Mbali May was in her mid-thirties and before she became an exorcist she was a model. Seemed to enjoy this job much more and probably was the best tamer not only in the cell, but the whole south region of Britain. And she was one of the people Suguro needed, currently monitoring first year of the esquires.

"Cut the sweets and start talking," she rolled her eyes. "What do you want?"

"Is this that obvious?"

"Pretty much," May grinned widely at him. "Nobody bring job down here, so you want something from somebody. By the way, normal people use newspapers to look innocent, you know."

"Never liked crosswords too much," Suguro mumbled, a bit ashamed that he was busted so easily. "But yeah, you're right, I need something."

"From me?" May raised eyebrow.

"More or less?"

"Talk," she ordered nonchalantly, sitting down in front of him, her big, dark eyes shining with interest.

So he told her vaguely about the irritating way too lively zombies and how he needed to borrow some esquires and pages to do the boring part of his job. All that, while trying not to stare at her too much. At least Ryuji wasn't as awkward as during the first week here, when the wide race diversity smacked him right in the face. He knew it would be different in London than it was in the Japan, but seeing was the whole different thing than knowing.

Besides, she was just oozing with self-confidence, turning every small defect into one hell of an advantage. Even the scars, bright white lines shining on the dark skin, she was wearing like the most precious jewelry.

"Ah!" Mbali laughed quietly, when he finished speaking about the weirdly acting zombies. "These!"

"You meet them too?"

"Nah," she waved her hand at him. "But your partner is quite the gossip, you know."

Suguro grimaced.

"So, how was the flight?"

Ryuji moaned and hid face in his hands, wishing to be someplace else. "Bug off, will you?"

"This is not going to die so easily," Mbali warned him. "Especially since you royally pissed Joseph off, you know."

"How many times I need to say that I get it?" he groaned.

Then shook his head. He wasn't hanging out around here just to moan about stupid gossiping people and being ashamed by dumb mistakes.

"Anyhow, I think they will be back in a few days. Or that this could happen somewhere else, so it would be useful to learn something about how it happened in the first place."

"And you think the answer is in the archives?"

"Worth a try," he said. "Besides, the kids need to learn how to do this stuff anyhow..."

"And you are just too lazy to do it yourself, aren't you?"

"More like I have enough on my plate as it is," Suguro said. It's not like she wasn't there when he was stuck in the auditorium, talking about demons and explaining differences in their behavior in comparison to the European monsters.

"Well, keep your notes, then," Mbali shrugged. "If you piss Joseph enough you will end up with new bath of pages on your very own hand."

Ryuji snorted. "I'm not planning to become a teacher."

"And you really think he will let you decide?" she chuckled. "This is so very naive of you!"

"Whatever," he mumbled, making mental note to try and not do anything stupid anytime soon. "Can I borrow your kids?"

"I can send them, why not," the woman opened the fridge and then grimaced. "And if you find out who is stealing my yoghurt I would be deeply grateful."

Suguro decided it was definitely time to get away from the kitchen, before he accidentally say a thing too much. Since Joseph was still pissed off, outing his little stealing habits would be a really bad thing to do.

xxx

Compared to the magical books, the stuff exorcists were learning from looked rather underwhelming. It was just a book, pretty thick and with cover that definitely saw the better times and many, many hands. It looked almost like it was about to fall into pieces when handed wrong. The paper was yellow and crumbled on the edges and there was almost as many loose pieces of paper shuffled between the pages of the actual book.

The letters weren't as straight an usually in book, probably written with use of a writing machine instead of computer.

The drawings were unmoving, which wasn't all that surprising, considering they were created by Muggles. Mostly black and white, sometimes - mostly added to the loose pages - there were photographs in color too.

All were gloomy, dry and looked like mix between pure scientific research and ancient drawings of mythological creatures. For some reason, they were looking really upsetting, even like that. The dry notes on the margins and over the small letter weren't helping the matter at all. They were telling about how to defeat these things after all and they weren't exactly shying off from dealing with the problem in the most... sufficient way.

On the other hand, nobody was shying off from the most gruesome details about how the monsters were killing people either.

This, Harry decided, was stuff straight from the Restricted Section of the library. If even somebody was even keeping that sort of stuff at Hogwarts, where curious students could be exposed to something as gruesome as this.

He knew that the exorcist was curious about magic, so they actually exchanged books. Harry couldn't help himself, but add into the mix the toothy, aggressive volume that Hagrid asked them to purchase when he started to teach, curious how Suguro would react.

He should have expected it.

The moment the book tried to take a bite from him, was followed second later with the volume hitting the floor with loud spat.

Then the exorcist stepped on it, hard. And then again.

"You little piece of shit, do you think you can chew on me just like that?!" Suguro growled.

The book whimpered miserably.

After that, it was obedient like a good dog, probably absolutely scared of getting stepped on again.

Exorcists were truly terrifying people, Harry decided.

Comparing both worlds was an interesting experience for both of them. The magical creatures and things that exorcists called demons were both similar and completely different at the same time. The Goblins Magical World knew about were completely different from the things they knew. Dementors acted like spiteful spirits, but weren't them. Even the ghosts were different.

"How come you never knew about this?" Harry asked, blinking, when they talked about it for the first time. "I mean, if you guys were fighting monsters for long time now, you definitely had to bump into some of them, right?"

"Point, "Suguro nodded. "But as far as I understand, all the magical things are in hiding, right?"

Harry chewed on his lip for a moment. "That makes sense, I guess... But still, nothing?"

"Isn't it the same in every world?" Suguro smirked. "You are never told all the details, all the secrets are never revealed."

"So, you think somebody knew?"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure of it."

"But isn't that unfair?" Harry protested. "I mean, somebody could get seriously hurt just because he didn't know what he was dealing with!"

"We have a lot of safety protocols," Suguro murmured. "The death rate is so high, because... uh, damn, nevermind."

There was a story behind it and he wasn't sure he wasted to hear it, considering how the exorcists expression darkened.

Back then, Harry decided not to ask and instead changed topic to something more comfortable for both of them. But now, when he was sitting at home completely alone, he couldn't help himself, but think back and trying to guess what it was.

The Dursleys ventured with Dudley quite early that day, managing to squish visit with every doctor in one day; since his cousin weigh was still an issue and Aunt Petunia got slightly paranoid that he would get overboard and actually hurt himself by following his new workout schedule. Dudley, naturally, wouldn't listen to her, because he had a new goal in his life – he wanted to get a better set of muscles than Suguro and Harry couldn't quite decide if it was the most stupid thing in the world or just awkwardly adorable.

Anyhow, Aunt Petunia made a bunch of phone calls and the family had no other choice than to follow her instructions. Harry, somehow, managed to excuse himself from the whole deal, but now he had no idea what to do with himself. The homework was already done and he wasn't in the mood to randomly read through his schoolbooks again. Besides, he borrowed the most interesting ones to Suguro anyway.

Harry quickly discovered that TV was completely not his thing and it didn't change this evening either. He turned it on, then proceed to switching through channel after channel looking for anything that would be even slightly interesting, but he failed to find anything. So, five minutes and over a hundred channels later, he was still bored out of his skull.

For a moment he toyed with the thought of calling Suguro, but Harry didn't want to annoy him too much. It was pretty easy to tell that the young exorcist was a really busy person. It was already awesome that he somehow managed to squish some free time out of his schedule just to hang out, since he was having the job with really odd – and quite often long – hours and school to top that. Besides, what he could tell him? I'm bored, please, do entertain me?

Harry shook his head. That would be just ridiculous and totally bratty thing to do. He wasn't five. He groaned and stood up, deciding that taking a long bath and then going to sleep was the best thing he could do at the moment.

It was just the moment when the magical world suddenly remembered that one Harry Potter actually existed. With a loud crack of apportantion, several figures suddenly appeared in the middle of the neat salon, at least two of them leaving dirty footprints on the shiny, wooden floor.

Harry was startled, but after he recognized the odd posture of Alastor Moody – probably this time the real one – and slightly hunched figure of Remus Lupin, he relaxed slightly and let the annoyance hit him. He had no idea how many times he had cleaned this floor on his knees, making sure the wood looked shiny enough and without any marks and here they were in their dirty shoes, casually leaving bits and pieces of whatever was on their soles on that pretty floor of his.

Then they told him that he was supposed to pack his bags and go with them.

"Just like that?" he asked.

"There's no time for that, boy!" Moody barked at him. "Now, hurry on!"

"I think I need to talk to my aunt and uncle first..." he mumbled, not really eager to leave the Privet Drive. Because going back to the magical world was same to jumping back into the middle of madness, no mention no way to contact Suguro – and keeping in check with the exorcist was really important, even if he couldn't really name the reason why. Harry didn't feel quite ready to return to the magical world just yet. He had the most peaceful summer vacations ever and felt almost cheated by people appearing without any previous warning and demanding that he needed to go back right now.

"Don't be silly, we don't have time to deal with the muggles," Moody hissed. "Somebody would visit them later."

"And they are supposed to be just fine with discovering in the morning that I'm not here?"

"Harry," Lupin sighed, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder. "I know this is difficult, but we need to go now. It's really important."

"Sure," he huffed. "Right. Now it is important. And a month before..."

"We are going to explain everything when we arrive at the place, okay?" Remus said quickly. "Now, where are your things?"

Harry sighed heavily.

xxx

The Grimmaur Place nr 12 was a rather gloomy place, Harry decided. It looked more like hideout of a villain than the hangout place of the good guys. Even with the curtains teared down from the windows, it was still dark inside and the old tapestry in shades of green and midnight blue wasn't helping to make it feel more homey.

Everything – the furniture, the old portraits in heavy frames, the giant chandelier still covered in thick, complicated spider web that somehow got forgotten during the cleaning – looked more like a mausoleum than a real house people were supposed to live in.

And there were a lot of them, Harry noted, looking around. The people who brought him here, a few more faces he was unfamiliar with, Hermione and Ron, and Ron's mom, so somewhere probably was the rest of the Weasley family. Sirius probably was around somewhere too, Remus already told him who this place belonged to.

"Harry!" Ron grinned widely, when he spotted him. "How to good to see you, mate!"

Then he hugged him tightly in a split of second crossing the distance between them.

Harry tensed.

"Guess so..." he murmured, humorlessly, not hugging back. Maybe he was acting like a brat, but hell, Ron was even worse. Like Harry wasn't sending him letters with desperate pleas for a whole freaking month.

"Harry, we were worried..." Hermione was no better.

"Really?" Harry grunted, unwrapping himself from Rons arms. "Wouldn't think so."

"Harry," she sighed. "I'm really sorry we couldn't write anything important, but Professor Dumbledore told us..."

"Dumbledore?" he shook his head. "Why would he even care about you writing to me about what is really going on in the magical world?"

"Well, he said that you needed some time on your own, to deal with all that happened in the fourth year..."

"No," Harry shook his head. "That was not what I needed at all. My letters hadn't give you any clue?"

"But Professor...!"

"I don't fucking care about Dumbledore!" Harry growled. "I needed to know what is going on! Do you even know how does it feel, when you're just sitting there, waiting, worrying sick that there is something really bad going on?"

Hermione shoulders slumbered with embarrassment.

"Right you are," Harry huffed, mercilessly continuing his rant. "Silence. Silence was all I received from all of you. Are you guys proud?"

"Guess so..." he murmured, humorlessly. Maybe he was acting like a brat, but hell, Ron was even worse. Like Harry wasn't sending him letters with desperate pleas for a whole freaking month.

"Harry, we were worried..." Hermione was no better. Nor the only one.

Harry found himself in a very awkward situation with a nothing else than a real queue of people wanting to hug him and ask how he was doing. And not waiting for the answer, since somebody else wanted to hug him.

He had also the amazing experience with meeting the old lady Black, screeching from her portrait and observing Sirius sneering back at her.

Was he seriously living in this mansion with that thing on the wall? Harry was sure that this wasn't the best thing for Sirius. After over a decade in the Azkaban prison, with the Demetors roaming around, he really shouldn't be in place so dark. Harry didn't know much about the evil spirits and everything connected to the demons, but just seeing how many Coal Tars were flying around - swarming around his head to the point he could barely see Sirius's eyes - this just couldn't be good.

"I'm fine," he said, hoping that would cause all these people to give him a moment to breathe. "I really am. But I need to talk to Professor Dumbledore. Is he here?"

"Harry, darling, Professor Dumbledore is a really busy man..." Mrs. Weasley started.

"That's kind of important?" he added awkwardly. He really needed to ask about that Voldemort wraith. Did he knew about it, being with him? Did he suspected it? And how the piece of dark lord soul got stuck on his forehead in the first place... Harry would be glad with even a some sort of dumb theory, something quickly made up.

"If this is about the letter from the Ministry, then don't worry," Lupin smiled warmly at him and put a his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Everything is going to end just fine, they have no reason to throw you out."

"They seems to think otherwise," Harry deadpanned. "But this is not it. Still important, through."

"You're not worried about the process?" Sirius blinked with a clear surprise.

"But Harry!" Hermione gasped. "This is really important, don't you see what they are doing?"

"Sort of but not really?" he shrugged. "Listen, really, it's fine. I just have something more important to talk about with Dumbledore and I really would like to do it as fast as possible."

"If this is about all the question in yours letters..." Mrs. Weasley started.

"That's important too, but no." he shook his head. "I still want the answers, but since nobody wanted to give me these..."

He shrugged." It seems like I don't need to know anything about what's going on in the magical world at all, right?"

"It's not that!" Hermione said quickly. "It's just..."

"We couldn't write anything, because somebody could get his hands on the letters," Lupin carefully explained. "I'm sorry, but we couldn't endanger anybody in such way."

"But you uh... stopped writing," Ron pointed out, not looking at him and scratching back of his neck, clearly ashamed. " Does that mean, that... you know, you're okay now? Or you just gave up on us?"

Harry blinked. That was the truth, after the whole deal with the exorcism, he tried to write, but had no idea how to explain things. And since his friends clearly didn't care enough to explain stuff to him… Well, there wasn't much else to write about. So he was promising himself that he will send the letters tomorrow, and when the next day come he was sure that he will be done on the another day for sure. The days just flew.

Finally, Harry just shrugged again. He felt like they deserved the truth, so there was no point of sugar coating a single thing.

"Both, I think."

"Now, Harry I don't believe there's a reason to be so harsh..." Lupin said quickly, trying to be some sort of neutral medium between them.

His mouth moved on its own before he even realized it."Sorry, but you're no better."

"Harry, we have our reasons..."

"Yes, you probably did," he sighed. "But think for a moment, how it looked like from my perspective. I... I just saw somebody die right in front of my face and then Voldemort literally rised from the grave. And then I was just put away at the Dursleys, with no one to talk to."

"We were here all the time, mate!" Ron hurried up with explanation. "But we really don't know anything, all the adults do is so hush-hush that even Fred and George can't get a word..."

"Ron!" Lupin hissed. "You shouldn't be ever trying to spy on us! It's really dangerous!"

"But we want to help!"

"You're just kids, you shouldn't worry about things like that!" Mrs. Weasley hurried up with explanation, hushing her son when he tried to protest.

"Well, funny you mention Voldemort," Harry grinned. That was probably not the very best thing to do in his situation and would freak out everybody, but he really needed to talk to Dumbledore. "Because we sort of have meet this summer. I think I'll need to talk to Professor Dumbledore-"

He couldn't even finish the sentence.

"What?!"

"Harry, are you all right?"

"Now I'm fine, but before that... did you knew that I was running around with piece of Voldemort souls stuck to my forehead all the time since he outed himself at Halloween all these years ago?"

"Harry James Potter, these jokes are not funny at all!"

"But I'm not joking," he said. "Uncle Vernon decided to actually do something and contacted an exorcist. And so, I was exorcised. Imagine my surprise, when it actually worked and a fucking Dark Lord came out of my forehead!"

Mrs. Weasley gasped, through Harry wasn't exactly sure, why. Was it because he was talking about Voldemort – using his name, for Merlin sake! – or was it was about the foul language or just the information was what on his forehead all that time?

"This was just some sort of a trick, I'm sure of it!" Sirius said, but his eyes were telling otherwise. He exchanged odd stares with Lupin.

"An exorcist!" Hermione gasped. "But that's… that's just ridiculous!"

"He probably hoped to exorcise the magic out of me and that's what the exorcist expected to deal with too. Well, actually they expected to have just talk an idiot out of some dumb stuff he believed in or send him to a hospital to get his head checked, or something." Harry explained.

"That's horrible, man!" Ron looked at him, his eyes wide. "Could they even do that? Take the magic from you?"

"I don't think so…" he murmured. "Funny, I never asked about that."

"Wait, wait!" Sirius shook his hands. " So your muggle uncle was just walking around babbling about magic around other muggles?"

Harry blinked. "Yeah?"

"That's not important at the moment!" Mrs. Weasley hissed at him, then looked at Harry with a worried expression on her face. "Are you sure you're okay, dear? Did they hurt you?"

"No, they were totally fine!" he said quickly. "But they said that the dark spirit being in me was messing with everybody's heads, something with bad stuff not able to cross through the wards around the house."

"They told them about the wards?!" Lupin groaned painfully.

"Er, no. One of them could see the wards just fine. Whatever these wards actually are."

"That's ridiculous!" Sirius shook his head. "You can't see the wards, that the whole point about them! You don't set them up so they could shine around your place like a giant Christmas tree! And a muggle seeing them, that's just…!"

"Well," Harry stepped back a little, because his Godfather was getting louder and louder with every word he spoke. "I don't know how he was able to see them. And that's not the point. The thing is, the Voldemort was there and I have no idea why. That's why I want to talk to Dumbledore."

The glances were exchanged. Hermione and Mrs. Weasley were still fretting over him, while Ron was just standing there, not sure what to do with himself. Once or twice he twitched, like he wanted to walk towards Harry and do something, but stopped himself, a sour expression blooming on his face.

Finally, the decision was made and Professor Lupin walked away to contact Professor Dumbledore by a Floo. Meanwhile, Mrs. Weasley shooed them all to kitchen, probably because she decided that food was just the thing everybody needed.

Harry spend the next few moments jabbing potatoes on his place. He wasn't really hungry, but he didn't want to hurt Mrs. Weasley feelings.

Professor Dumbledore, alarmed by the news, showed up pretty quickly and asked him to go someplace where they could talk in peace and Harry obediently followed, suddenly feeling slightly nervous. The joyful tingle in Headmaster eyes was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a serious air around him. The little demons in his path probably were able to tell that too, because they were jumping out of his way even before he was about to bump into them, creating a clear path in the dark corridor.

They settled in a room that served as a bedroom for Ron and his brothers, considering the mess inside. Ron trousers were lying on the floor, next to a sock without a pair, and the beds were covered with a lot of different stuff too. Clothes, unwrapped candy and just the wrappers, sparkling in the dim light. Headmaster carefully put away a sport magazine with some Quidditch team flying on the cover and sat down.

Harry decided to take a chair, because he only had to grab all the clothes on it and throw them on the other one instead of digging a bit of space for himself on the other bed.

"So…" he started awkwardly. "Can you tell me something? About Voldemort, I mean. Why he was..."

Harry stopped, looking for the right words and failed in his search.

"I would really like to see the exorcism for myself, if you don't mind," the old wizard said.

"See?"

"Ah, yes! Just concentrate on the memory and I'm going to extract it with my wand," Dumbledore explained. "Do not worry, this is not going to hurt and you're still going to remember it."

"Okay?" Harry said with a small shrug. He didn't really understood where the old wizard was going with all that, but if it was going to help, then he had nothing against rolling with it.

A moment later, a silver mist was floating around the wand, shiny and elegant. Harry didn't know how exactly the thoughts were supposed to looks like, but he wasn't expecting something so… neat coming out of his head. Especially now, when he was still battling his own emotions, unable to say if he was anxious, angry or just sad about being left alone for so long.

Headmaster waved his wand and the silvery thought suddenly exploded around them in a blast of colors. Harry gasped, surprised by sudden light and blinked. When he opened his eyes, the memory was spread around them, the messy room still visible behind, but dimmed and dark compared to bright colors and silhouettes of people that seemed to be shining.

Harry felt rather odd, suddenly facing himself from few weeks ago, sitting on the floor by the bed with a really scared expression on his face. The t-shirt on his memory-self looked dirty, just like the rest of his room and Harry eyed carefully the headmaster, feeling the blush creeping up into his cheeks, but the old wizard seemed to be completely absorbed by observing what was going on.

The moment when the wraith manifested itself was almost as terrifying as when he lived through the whole situation, a menacing shape creating itself from the darkness around. It was growing rapidly, towering above everyone in the memory, draining the colors from the world.

Harry tore his eyes from the Dark Lord and looked at the Dumbledore instead. Just then, the wraith spoke in the unclear words and raspy, high–pitched voice and Headmasters eyes widened slightly.

"What was he talking about, Professor?" he asked quietly.

Dumbledore was silent for a moment and Voldemort was burning in the middle of the room that seemed to lose its clarity for a moment; the silhouettes of everybody turned fuzzy like he lost his glasses or something, the colors blending together into vague stains. Then, suddenly everything looked fine once again. Voldemort was dying and Coal Tars were flying furiously around, trying to get away from the blazing fire only to stop rapidly in front Suguro.

Who didn't looked quite human either, standing in the fiery blaze himself, flames dancing on his skin, seeming to rise straight from the small cut on his hand. The fire seemed to take a shape of some sort of a winged creature, but it was so bright, Harry couldn't stop his eyes from watering. But he stared anyway, not sure how the whole thing with memory worked. He was really sure that all he saw during the fight was lord Voldemort spirit and then a sudden burst of fire. So why now could he gaze into Suguro's burning, bright eyes?

Harry shook his head. That wasn't important at the moment. What really matters…

"Can you explain why he was there, sir?" he asked. "I mean, he already have a body, so how it was possible for him to be… there?"

Dumbledore was silent for a few moments. After he finally decided to speak, his voice was quiet, and for some reason, he sounded old.

"Three years ago, you showed me a destroyed diary. Since then, I suspected that Voldemort have done something truly terrifying. This…"

The headmaster shook his head.

"Did you suspected that he had done something to me?"

"Please, Harry," Dumbledore looked straight at him, his pale blue eyes had a truly serious look. "Give an old man some time to put his own thoughts together. "

"Well, he sort of came right out of my head, so at least some explanation…" Harry found his mouth running and bit his tongue, feeling slightly ashamed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound like that… but I'm really scared. I just want to understand, what happened."

"Me too, my boy."

xxx

Sitting in a lone chair in the middle of really huge room, surrounded by gloomy looking members of Wizengamon, Harry Potter by all means should be at the end of his wits, sweating and panicking between fits of utter frustration.

He probably would be doing that just now, if not for the goat.

Because there was a goat, right in front of him, mere few feet away, staring at him with apathetic eyes.

The goat looked utterly bored and like it needed a bath rather desperately; tangled fur that once could be whiteish has uncomfortable grey coloring to it and there were disturbing dark spots on it too, especially around goat's jaw.

The wizards were completely oblivious to her existence and Harry Potter found that fact astonishing.

Here they were, glorious and mighty, refusing to believe in mass murdered return, snapping at him every time he tried to open his mouth to try and answer their questions and they hadn't the slightest idea that there was ghost of a goat in the middle of their courtroom.

His aunt was right, wizards were beyond ridiculous.

The whole thing looked like taken right out of some B class movie about unjust world or something like that, just with weird violet clothes and with people who were not even trying to hide the fact that they were insulting each other – and him, mostly. Especially the toad–like lady, who seemed to love the sound of her own voice, since she was going on and on, sweetly spitting more and more absurd words.

The goat looked completely disinterested.

He tried to tell them about the Dementors, since somebody asked, but besides being amazed about his ability to use a Patronus Charm, nobody really listened to him. Then Arabella Figg, who just conveniently happened to be a squib, tried to tell them the same story.

The toad-like lady jumped at her chance and started telling poor Mrs. Figg what she was supposed and not see. Harry Was pretty sure the goat snickered.

"Mister Potter!" somebody demanded his attention. "Are you even listening?!"

"Aha," he said, nodding. His brain still felt like something was broken inside.

They were hidden society of very proud people, because they knew something about the world that mundane muggles did not. They lived among magical beast, so sure that they saw it all and knew best, because they had power and could do whatever they want...

And now Harry had the greatest proof that they were not that special. There was yet another hidden world, that seemed to be even more dangerous than magical one and muggles were doing just fine, inviting a way to fight they way through the pure horror, while wizards were completely oblivious to ghostly goat existence.

The spirit seemed to share his sentiment. It chewed a few times on nothing then tilted head a little, eyeing for a short moment Dumbledore - and when exactly he showed up anyway? - who was in the middle of very complicated speech about morality and innocence. A lone Coal Tar flew by him, yawning widely, two others were trying to chew on Harry's shoelaces. They were really adorable for a spirits that were possessing dirt. And definitely much more interesting than Wizengamon.

The session finally ended, showing him mercy and letting keep his wand intact, which probably was a nice turn of events.

Harry wasn't sure anymore. He loved magic of course, but right now he would prefer a little bit of mundane in the mix. A year without anybody trying to kill him would be a really nice thing.

Dumbledore was not even looking at him, just leading him through corridors of Ministry to where lift was and Coal Tars were dancing happily around them or even floating on paper-planes of great importance. Harry walked carefully, so he wouldn't step on one of them accidentally, which made the whole venture even longer.

xxx

The moment Harry arrived back at the Grimmaur Place he was instantly swarmed by everybody who lived there, temporary or not. Once again, there was a lot of hugging, a lot of happy shouts and no way out. He just sighed and let them do whatever they wanted, because that was the fastest way to be done with all that mess and get away.

After he went through the hugging – which seemed to be not one, but two rounds this time – Mrs. Weasley dragged him to the kitchen and was close to force-feeding him, since he still was too thin in her protective eyes. Not that he had anything against the food, Mrs. Weasley was really great at cooking. He just got issue with how much of it he was supposed to fit inside his stomach.

At least after he was done, he could use the excuse of being exhausted by the stress of getting through the fight in the courtroom and find a lonely corner just for himself.

However most of Grimmaur Place was still out of commission. There were dangerous and dark things hidden in too many corners to count, so he could just wander deeper into the dim corridors and got lost for a few hours. Because of that, soon after he curled into one of the ancient, green armchairs with Suguro's book, Harry found himself having a company.

"So," Hermione said slowly, rocking on the balls of her feet, trying to not sound very awkward while starting this conversation. "What are you reading?"

"A book?" Harry answered carefully, closing the battered up volume. He wanted to find out what the ghostly goat exactly was and why it was hanging out in the court room instead of somewhere outside, like any other good farm animal. But he didn't feel really good with letting other people know what he was reading.

In the worst case scenario they would decide that this book was pure dark stuff and take it away, as always not listening to any sort of reason at all. And the book was borrowed. Probably at least two times, since Suguro had to ask around for the English version. Losing it would be out of the question.

"This isn't anything from library over here, isn't it?" Hermione asked. "Because I tried to borrow some book from there, you know, to learn something about what Purebloods are reading in their free time and all, but they said it was absolutely impossible and all of these volumes could be dangerous..."

"No," he shook his head. "I borrowed it when I was still at Privet Drive."

"Oh, good then," Hermione nodded. Then bit her lip.

"Look," she started again. "I know we made a terrible mistake and we shouldn't just let Professor Dumbledore decide about everything we do... but I just didn't know what I was supposed to do! I mean, he should know better, right? All that knowledge, years of experience... he's supposed to be right!"

"And then the world proved you wrong in funny way, huh?" Harry asked.

She blushed brightly, turning her gaze away, clearly ashamed.

Harry grimaced.

Damn, he probably was channeling Suguro a bit too much. The exorcist was definitely rubbing on him and in more than just one way. Mrs. Weasley already told him what she was thinking about his new and improved language. And Harry was pretty sure that Suguro was censoring himself, since talking in foreign language and all.

And right now, one of his friends looked hurt, because he didn't know when to bite his tongue and stop talking. Deciding to end this as soon as possible, he put the book away, on the table next to his armchair. Her eyes followed the movement.

"Sorry," Harry said. "I'm still angry, but I shouldn't take it out on you like that."

"It's okay," Hermione sighed. "I really should have think instead just following orders. So… are we finally talking to each other?"

"We always were talking to each other," he mumbled quietly.

"Yeah, right," the girl rolled her eyes in theatrical manner. "I was talking, you were brushing me off. And I get why, I just… I think you made your point…"

Luckily, Ginny showed up before the conversation turned any more awkward. Because awkward it was, Hermione was just going on and on and would do it for the next hour, just to make sure she said everything she wanted to.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Just talking, I guess?" Harry answered quickly, before Hermione decided to shoo away the other girl. "And what are you doing?"

"Just being bored out of my scull, I guess," she shrugged. "Do you have any idea how dull all the jokes gets when you lived all your life with Fred and George under one roof?"

"Honestly, I don't know," Harry agreed. For a magical place, Grimmaur mansion was rather dull, since there was nothing for them to do other than carefully cleaning or doing their homework. Which was a problem, when it was already done.

"Huh," Ginny eyed the book with curious eyes and then picked it up and opened it, turning a few pages. "This is pretty wicked! Where you got that?"

"A friend borrowed it to me."

"He got an eye for wicked stuff, that's for sure!" she said, grinning widely, while stopping on particularly gruesome image. "Are these photos muggle? They aren't moving..."

Harry nodded.

She continued browsing through the book, barely blinking, completely fascinated by the strangeness of it all.

"Throwing knives at the windstorm?" Ginny frowned. "That just doesn't seems to be right!"

"You can always tell it you're strangling it with your belt..." Harry murmured. That sounded even more ridiculous than assaulting air with a knife.

"This is ridiculous!" Hermione winkled her nose. "Why are you even read something like that?"

"For fun?" he said, a little bit too quickly for it to sound really natural. But it would be quite hard to explain to people that he was seeing things they were unable to see. Considering how that woman in the court acted towards Mrs. Figg, the wizarding world was pretty sure that it saw it all.

"Well," Ginny shrugged. "We do have a vacation after all. He can read whatever he wants."

"But this is so... brutal!"

"Yeah," Ginny grinned. "Awesome!"

"I will never understand you two," Hermione shook her head.

Ginny just continued to flipping the pages in quick pace, with eyes wide open. A small blush of excitation crept up her cheeks as she was hungrily reading through bits and pieces randomly choosen from the content.

"Can I borrow it?" she asked.

"Uh, I think so…?" Harry said slowly, blinking. He was a bit surprised by her sudden interest in gruesome stories. But she was stuck here much longer than he or Hermione, so at this point anything different could pass as the most fascinating thing in her entire life. "Just be careful, it's not mine.

"Sure thing!" she almost jumped in excitation. "I will be totally careful, promise!"

And then she turned back on her heel and ran with the battered book hugged tightly in her arms.

"That was…" Hermione shook her head in confusion. "I have no idea what that was."

As soon as she finished the sentence, there was a loud thud coming from somewhere outside the room.

They looked at each other.

"You know what?" she murmured. "I'm going to check if she's okay. There were at least three false steps in the staircase and she seemed to be too excited to care where she put her feet, so…"

Harry was thinking of exactly the same thing, but since she was already halfway towards the doors, he decided to not follow her. Instead he just sighed and just changed his position, to be as comfortable as possible. Now he was without his book and alone and it looked like a neat opportunity for trying out how he would deal with the whole Zen meditation without Suguro being somewhere around. Sitting and just thinking was still somewhat strange for Harry.

But he barely managed to sit down, this time on the sofa so he could cross his legs, and take a deep breath before the doors opened again.

Figures, Harry thought, exhaling and opening his eyes. Of course he couldn't have a moment alone when the building was full of people who were worrying about him or just wanted to talk to him. Maybe in a day or two…

"So," Lupin started awkwardly, not sitting down but just standing there, like he expected to be banished from the room at any moment. "Everything ended up fine, yes?"

"I guess so?" Harry shrugged.

Sirius, who seemed to be attached by hip to his werewolf friend, at least he sat down instead of towering over people around him.

"You guess?" he asked, elbowing Harry.

"Well, you know, live without school, that would be something," Harry snickered.

"Yeah, sweet dreams," his Godfather grinned back. "But you're still a student and that's what's important, right?"

He didn't sound all that happy, Harry noticed.

"Anyway, Harry, since we have that awful thing with the ministry behind us," Remus started carefully. "Would you like to tell us something more how you spend your vacation?"

"Yeah, you seemed to be almost unhappy when the guys pulled you out of that house," Sirius pointed out.

Well, that could be quite puzzling for them, Harry had to agree. Usually the Privet Drive was like a prison for him, where only the work and unhappiness await. But this July was different and he really enjoyed it, the silence and not being forced to deal with all the dangers that seemed to gravity towards him every time he touched his wand.

"It got better," he said. "We found some sort of common language, I guess."

"And that new friend of yours?"

"He's fine," Harry said carefully. "Why are you asking?"

"Just trying to make up for the lost time, I guess!" Sirius gave him a toothy grin. "I should know what stuff you like, what sort of people you hang out with…"

"You know Hermione and Ron already," Harry pointed out.

"…do you have an eye on some girl!" Sirius continued happily, his smile widening when the man noticed the blush on Harry's face.

"I don't!" he protested, already feeling like his face was burning.

"Oh, are you sure?" Sirius playfully poked him into the ribs. "Because you seemed to be way to red for somebody who's innocent!"

"You're just asking all the weird questions!" Harry protested. He was falling deeper and deeper into a trap and couldn't do anything about that.

xxx

"And they took him?" Suguro asked, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. He wasn't around for a few days and this was what he was greeted with. "No hello, no kiss my ass, no nothing?"

"You got this in one," Vernon grunted unhappily. "They remembered that they had to send someone only after we started panicking it was the other group."

"Are you sure they are the good guys?" Ryuji massaged the back of his neck, grimacing. After meeting Seven Ryuji expected wizards to be annoying, but this was much more than he expected to deal with. Honestly, these people had no emotional intelligence whatsoever.

"They told us the bad guys would just kill us, so..." Vernon shrugged. "But sometimes it looks like they are not even considering us when they are doing their thing, good guys or not."

"Sounds like it," Suguro grimaced. Grabbing kid in the middle of the night, not letting him even use the phone to call his family definitely wasn't a nice move. Showing up the day later, after the family in question was about to start walking up the walls didn't seem fine to him either.

On the other hand, Dursley family managed to shake off negative effects of evil sucker surprisingly well, especially considering they spend years under its influence.

"And they took that blasted owl too!" Vernon continued his rant. "How in the world we are supposed to contact the boy without this freakish bird?!"

"Cell phones aren't mixing well with magic, aren't they?"

"No, they don't even work on their side," Vernon shook his head. "Ridiculous if you ask me."

"And what about that law issue?" Suguro frowned slightly. They're going to tell you what's going on?"

"Right now they told us only there's nothing to worry about," Vernon grunted. "As if!"

"So, nothing about these Dementors either," Suguro sighed.

"Not a word."

"We can send a patrol around, just to be sure," Suguro said, deciding to not explain how exactly these patrols were looking like. There was no reason to tell tales about how local tamer was able to summon swarm of locust or other insects to do her bidding. Bugs alone were freaking people out. No reason to scare them even more with talk about ghostly insects.

Just as Suguro was about to say his goodbyes, Dudley showed up at the corner of the street and greet them loudly, before jogging towards his house. He was red on the face and his breath was short.

Suguro frowned slightly at the sight of him.

"Don't you think it's a little too hot for running?"

"That's why I'm doing it in the morning!"

"This," the exorcist said slowly. "Is not the morning."

"Well, maybe for you," Dudley shrugged. "What you call a morning is the middle of the night of everybody else."

Suguro rolled his eyes.

"Well, at least try to remember about drinking a lot of water," he huffed. "Dehydration is not a funny thing."

Vernon snickered slightly, observing the interactions between these two. At first, he wasn't sure if letting Dudley go hang out with that cousin of his and the exorcist was a good idea. After all, Duds was his only, precious son, so Vernon ought to be careful with him and look carefully at what sort of people his boy was spending time with.

But Suguro was fretting even more over both of the boys than Petunia was, and she really was giving her best for Duddy. It wasn't the first time when he was nagging about getting enough fluids and for whatever reason, Vernon was always finding it hilarious. It was quite hard for him to not laugh the young exorcist in the face.

"Yeah, yeah," Dudley waved his hand, completely ignoring the stern glare. "Dad already told you about the fre...uh! magicians that took Harry, right?"

After Suguro nodded, Dudley told him about the Dementors showing up three days ago, since Harry hadn't the chance to do so himself, at least in not such great detail.

"Naturally, nobody else decided to explain why in the world these things were even out in the open?" Ryuji scowled, when the boy finally finished his story and the glass of water. After the conversation headed towards the stuff Mr. Dursley considered to be not normal, he rushed them both inside.

"Not a word," Vernon grunted. "And Petunia told me that these… things are supposed to be only in that prisons of theirs."

"Prison?" Suguro blinked. "Wizards are keeping these things shut?"

"It's the other way around, I think. These things happened to be prison guardians."

"Wait, what?" Ryuji hoped, that he understood wrong, but no. Apparently Wizards decided that soul-sucking monsters were a great and cheap working force. Apparently not only the devil wanted his payment in souls.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**  
**Only A Muggle**

Fred and George Weasley once again proved that they were so much more intelligent than they grades suggested. Their newest invention didn't look too appealing, but it was probably the best thing Harry even saw. It could help him to learn something about what was going on in the magical world so much!

Harry had nothing against using any invention of the twins at all. Knowledge, after all, was power, and when a psycho was hunting you down with a fiery passion every sort of power was welcome. Besides, he was really worried and the adults weren't talking to him. To the point they completely ignored every question he asked. Or just brushing his worries of, because he was just a kid and shouldn't occupy his innocent mind with such grim things.

On the other hand, they seemed to be suddenly way to curious about the whole exorcism deal. Harry really wanted to kick himself in the butt for even saying a word about that. He really could better control his mouth while angry. But that could wait. Now he was using the opportunity to actually learn something.

He eagerly bended over the receiving end of the magical version of a bug and stiffened. As he feared, the adults were talking about the exorcism.

"Sirius, you were constantly changing the topic," Remus said with voice more weary than usual. The full moon was either very close or happened a few days ago. Harry wasn't sure. "How exactly were you expecting to get any answers at all?"

"Remmy, the Dementors might have suck out a bit of this and that from me," Sirius said slowly. Very slowly, like he was talking to a small child. "But they definitely were not interested in my brain."

"Like there was anything else to be interested in," Moody commented dryly.

"My point is," Sirius continued, ignoring the auror. "That I do remember how you were acting when you were trying to hide your furry problem. And Harry was doing exactly the same thing. Hadn't you notices, how wary of us he suddenly became, as soon as we mentioned the whole exorcism stuff?"

"Of course he was!" Mrs. Weasley huffed. "The poor boy is obviously traumatized and no wonder about that! We don't even know what they do to him!"

"Well, he's not talking," Sirius said. "And we can't force him to talk to us either. That's just going to piss him off even more."

"This is for his own good, Black," Moody grunted. "The brat can be if that floats his boat. He can survive with that."

"Now you sound like Snivellus," Sirius groaned unhappily. "You really are fine with him not trusting us? Doesn't that beat the whole purpose of keeping him safe?"

"Well," Remus murmured slowly. "You do have a point, I think. If he doesn't trust us, then how are we going to know if something bad is going on or not?"

"Soon enough he'll be back at Hogwarts and then he can be as angry as he wants to be."

"And that worked soo well in the past," Remus snickered. "Really, Sirius is right. Harry needs to trust us and breaking his trust just to force him to say something he doesn't want to..."

"That would be just dumb," Sirius finished for him. "So give him some time, alright?"

"It could be all just a story, because he needs attention," Moody pointed out.

"I Don't believe that," Mrs. Weasley stated decisively. "He knows better than made up stories like that!"

"But the whole thing doesn't make any sort of sense either!" Moody protested. "There's no way for Him to just show up like that, because some muggle said a bit of weird things!"

"Well, something did happened!" Sirius groaned. "I don't know what, or why, but these crazy people did something to Harry and I want to know what as much as the next guy! But he won't tell us if we just keep pushing him."

"And you think a handful of dirty jokes are going to solve the problem?"

"Well it's definitely work better than trying to force all the answers out of him," Sirius shrugged. "And throwing him a bone would be a good idea too, I think. He wants to be involved somehow, I think, so you know... Showing that we trust him will make him trust us. I think."

"We can't just walk around and tell teenagers everything!" Moody protested.

"I agree with Alastor," Molly added. "They are still children, they shouldn't be involved!"

"I never said we should tell them something important. Just... something."

"And act like that little something is a big deal?" Remus sighed. There was a long pause, like he was toying with the idea in his mind for a few moments. "That actually could work. And making them memorize some stuff would help too... even knowing only the theory behind a shielding charm is going to be better than nothing."

Harry exchanged looks with the twins. Their sour expressions looked exactly how he felt himself.

"But they better don't get in any fights!" Mrs. Weasley demanded.

"Considering how rotten luck they had up until now..." Remus murmured.

"Better safe than sorry," Moody agreed. "But I'm still going to say that these were just muggles fooling around," Moody huffed.

"Then how are you going to explain the wraith of Him?"

"An illusion! Psychological manipulation maybe, I've heard that muggles are being more and more fascinated with that stuff." Sirius sounded like he was really frustrated. "I don't know!"

"Then I think we should just get the answers straight out of the source!" Moody threw his hands in the air. "It's just a muggle anyway. A chair, a binding curse and a bit of Veritaserum and we all know everything we ever wanted to know about this ridiculous thing."

"I like that plan," Sirius sounded like he was really happy about the whole deal.

"I don't know," Lupin murmured. "We can't just go and kidnap somebody because we want to talk to him."

"Well, we're at war, boy," Moody growled. "If you want to be nice, then go someplace else."

"I understand," he sighed. "But kidnapping? That's just wrong."

"We're kidnapping him just for an hour or so," Mr. Weasley shrugged. "He won't even remember that, so what's the big deal? The Obliviators are doing this all the time!"

Harry felt like his blood turned into ice. They were serious. They were talking about kidnapping somebody like it was no big thing and seemed to be perfectly okay with wiping somebody's memory just because they could. Harry remembered all too well what happened to Lockhart when he butchered the spell because he tried to use a broken wand. To think they could do the same thing to somebody as bright as Suguro…

"Well, I don't know about the Ministry being a good thing to follow..." Remus started carefully. "But if this is for Harry..."

"We're just going to make sure he's okay," Mr. Weasley said quickly. "You know, it always could be an untrained wizard and not just a plain old muggle, you never know with these foreigners, so odd, the bunch of them!"

"That would definitely mess this up," Moody grunted. "We need a plan and a few people on the case."

"A few?" Sirius snorted. "You're afraid that some boy who's probably just a muggle, would kick your ass?"

"I just want be done with this as quickly as possible," Alastor snorted. "need to be spotted by the idiots from the Ministry, they already made more than enough trouble with that dumb court."

Harry really wanted to jump in there and scream until they regain their senses, because this was just terrible. But he needed to know more and not only about what they planned to do with Suguro but about other things too, so he bit his lip and continued to listen in silence.

There was some more hush-hush stuff about guarding something and Voldemort not making any obvious moves, and then they were caught and shoed away before he could even say a thing.

Harry wasn't in a good mood. For the ten past days he really hoped that after dealing with the Ministry of Magic he was going to finally get some answers and maybe a moment to breathe.

Of course, it just wasn't happening. The adults not only decided to keep all the important stuff secret and trick him. Even Dumbledore was still silent, either acting like Harry wasn't in the room at all, or looking at him with a strange expression in his eyes while he thought Harry wasn't looking at him.

He really didn't want to drag Suguro in any of this mess. He had life hard enough. This was the reason Harry decided against talking about the exorcist in the first place. But now...

They knew his face. Dumbledore saw his face, he took it out right from Harry's mind.

They knew Suguro's face and there was no way for Harry to even warn him about the Order of Phoenix in any way at all.

Harry groaned and hid his face in hands in a silent act of frustration. He was sitting alone for quite some time – or at least it felt like some time had passed – not carrying to turn the lights on or even to take his shoes down; sitting in the ancient armchair with his legs curled up, with soles of his trainers leaving dark stains against the expensive fabric gave him at least some satisfaction. Taking his revenge upon a chair was probably just childish and dumb, but Harry wasn't in the mood to act like a proper adult.

The doors creaked slightly and somebody carefully walked in. It was Hermione and she was moving painfully slow, like she expected him to explode at any moment and didn't particularly want to be anywhere close to the ground zero.

"Harry...?" Hermione asked in a soft voice. "Is everything alright?"

"No," he said, not looking at her. "No, it's not. Anything but."

Harry could clearly see in her eyes that she instantly understood what he was talking about. Or at least was able to guess. Maybe the twins filled her in. Or he was just that obvious. Probably the last one, considering how the two Weasley brothers crept inside after her, listening on their conversation.

"I'm sure they know what they are doing," she smiled slightly, trying to reassure him somehow.

"You don't even know what they were talking about," George pointed out dryly, making her jump with surprise. Hermione hadn't noticed that they walked in, Harry noted. She was lucky that her hair was still in the same color as usual.

"And it seems to be wrong," Fred added with a grimace. "A bit. You know, he's just a muggle… No offense, really."

"I'm sure they know what they are doing," she repeated, even after the twins explained in short words what made them all to be so disturbed. Only her cheeks got more flushed and she was talking faster, like it was going to prove that she was right. "They fought in one war against Death Eaters already!"

"Hermione," Harry groaned. "They are planning a kidnapping. Why are you fine with that?"

"I'm not fine!" she protested. "But I think, in that situation..."

She chewed on her lip for a moment, looking for a right words.

"Hermione, kidnapping is still kidnapping, no matter how well you mean for the world."

"But... how can they contact him?"

"I don't know, send a letter, maybe? Choose a date, meet up on the neutral ground?" Harry suppressed flash of annoyance. "Honestly, how cooperative would you feel if somebody would suddenly grab you, apparte to some strange place and then told you that this all was for your own good?"

"Okay," she sighed. "I believe you made your point. Wizards are crazy. But I'm sure your friend will be just fine..."

"Oh, I'm more worried about the Order members," Harry laughed a little nervously. "As far as I know, Suguro is rather used to fight."

He was lying. Badly. He was absolutely terrified by the whole situation and the fact that he hadn't any way to prevent anything from happening… Even during that horrible time at the cemetery or in the Chamber of Secrets he at least could try to do something.

"Definitely not with the wizards," she pointed out.

"Yes," Harry reluctantly agreed. It was exactly the thing which was freaking him out so much about whole situation. Even if the exorcist somehow manage to go through the books he borrowed from Harry and then somehow apply the newfound knowledge to the real–life situation during a surprise attack… it was so going to end up badly. So he continued, more to try and reassure himself than for any other reason. "Maybe not. But after he dealt with piece of Voldemort he acted like it wasn't anything big!"

"Now he sound just stupid!" Hermione winkled her nose.

"I don't think so. But you have to actually see some things to believe."

She was silent for a few moments before she decided to speak again.

"You… really do care about him, right?" she asked in a soft voice.

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "He's great, really. And not treating me like some dumb kid that needs to be sheltered."

"Harry," Hermione said slowly. "You are a kid."

"With a psychopathic murderer after me," he rolled his eyes. "Seriously, that cut childhood a little bit short, don't you think?"

"They just care about you…" Hermione tried to explain.

"Look, I get it. But This is not what I need. I need… to know things, about Voldemort, about what is really going on out there and how exactly I'm supposed to stay alive. Sitting on my butt and letting adults do… whatever they're doing is just not enough."

"I'm sorry," she sighed. "I wish I could help you, somehow. I really do."

Harry shook his head, but couldn't stop his lips from curving into a small smile.

xxx

It was impossible to talk the adults out of that idiotic idea once they made their mind. Even worse, they were trying very hard to not give Harry even a chance to voice his opinion about the issue. To the point that the group destined to snatch the exorcist moved out when he was occupied with the daily routine of dealing with the house pests. They will be back the next day, obviously, since Kreacher was trying really hard to snatch back as much of little annoying creatures as he could, just for the sake of make the living at Grimmaur Place worse than it could be.

Harry could just grit his teeth and wait, sitting on the sofa by the wall in the room they destined to be the apparition site. And try to not snap at Mrs. Weasley who tried to make him feel better by trying to feed him every five minutes. Ron, on the other hand, seemed to be more than fine by that course of action. At least he was siding with Harry, even if he was happily chewing something most of the time. Hermione acted like she was ignoring Ron, but Harry caught her gaze wandering towards the other boy, like she was checking if he was really still eating after all he managed to swallow already.

The antique clock seemed to be making fun of Harry, with its chime moving painfully slow, but his own watch was showing the exact same time.

Finally, the few members of Order of Phoenix returned, with the captured exorcist, no less. Lupin was sporting a black eye and was rubbing his ribs with painful grimace on his face, while Mr. Weasley had rather sheepish grin on his face and seemed to be wrapped in some sort of a chain. Even Snape got hurt; he was holding bloodied handkerchief to his face, but he was the one who was holding Suguro at the wand point too. Right until the exorcist kicked him in the knee and when he was falling in the back of his head with an elbow, for a good measure.

"Wow!" Ron gasped.

"Ow!" Hermione grimaced, because the man fell face–first on the ground with an impact big enough to produce a loud thud.

Sirius made a weird, canine noise and jumped right where the fight was, a spell already dancing on the tip of his wand, before he even got over the railing.

The noise was all Suguro needed. He moved out of the way, just by bending his knee and lowering his whole body, so the curse flew harmlessly over him. Then, before Sirius could react, the exorcist whirled around and hit the wizard right in the moment when his feet touched the ground. The force behind the punch was strong enough to push Black a few steps away.

Just then Snape, with a vicious grimace on his face send a curse in Suguro's direction, forcing the exorcist to step back. Another one followed and then another, all of them wordless, just a sharp movement of the wand, not giving the opponent an opportunity to hit back.

In the spectacle of blistering lights, Harry barely could see his Godfather, who was got up from the floor but stayed low to avoid the curses, creeping slowly towards the enemy, or Suguro. The exorcist was dodging and ducking and rolling away from the seemingly never ending wave of spells, both of his hands close to the chest.

"Is he hurt…?" Harry gasped, bending over the railing, so he could see better.

But there was no blood or other things to worry about. Just his fingers moving quickly, forming odd looking gestures.

Harry eyes widened with recognition in the same moment when the bright blue lights suddenly appeared in the mid air, forming a complicated, symmetric pattern. A red blast hit it with a loud cracking noise like the spell just smacked into a physical object, creating a cloud of sparkles.

Snape's eyes widened at the sigh, but his wanded arm never stopped moving, bringing to life yet another charm the exorcist's way. Suguro, his fingers still locked in a complicated seal, pushed himself off the ground and throw himself right where the wizards was standing, not sparing a single glance to the menacing light of a curse. The air was filled with sparks and noise once again and before even the lights disappeared, the exorcist suddenly broke the seal and crossed his forearms, right before rammed into Snape with full force.

The wizard made a choking noise while the railway he was brutally thrown into protested loudly, bending and creaking under the unexpected pressure.

Sirius jumped, using the moment where the exorcist turned his back towards him, transforming mid-air into his animal form and baring teeth into a menacing grimace, sharp fangs promising to bit and tear.

Suguro barely managed to turn around and raise his hand, but somehow managed to push the attacking beast away with his forearm. Reacting instinctively, he grabbed the dark fur, fingers digging deep into the skin and throwing the dog away, once again using the movement of his whole body to add more strength to the blow.

As the Black hit the wall over the railing with a painful yelp, another person apparted into the room.

"Wouldn't you just stay put, boy?!" Moody growled. He took out his wand with one sharp movement, like it was already waiting for the chance to jump into his hand.

The young man just grinned viciously.

"Is he going to fight Mad-Eye?" Ron gasped. "But he don't have a wand!"

"I don't think he's even magical," Hermione murmured quietly. She looked pale and scared. That sort of a fight was definitely not what she was expecting, Harry decided. Nobody was expecting a brawl like that, not even he. And he knew Suguro! But the sheer brutality of the way the exorcist was fighting was just downright scary.

"If you want to play this way, then..." Moody stated, irritation clear in his voice. In one swift move he raised his wand and suddenly, the floor under the exorcist creaked menacingly. The wooden boards suddenly came to life, wiggling and bending under him, trying to push themselves off the floor.

It was also the moment when Suguro ducked to the corner of the room and grabbed a broom.

"What the...?!" Moody asked, gaping at the teen with slightly bewilded expression.

The young man was wielding the broom like it was some sort of a weapon and for some reason he didn't look ridiculous.

"You really think this is going to help you against me?" Alastor snorted. "what do you plan to do with this thing, brat? Fly away?"

"You're the one doing the flying," Suguro growled.

The floorboards shot up, gleaming with still sharp tips of nails in them, circling around the exorcist, who somehow managed to step away just in the time to not be knocked over when the floor had risen.

Both Suguro and Moody waited, two rows of wood slowly circling around the exorcist, ready to strike.

"I've seen all your tricks," the old Auror said, his voice rumbling loudly in the sudden silence. "There's nothing you can surprise me with anymore."

"Is that a challenge?"

Without skipping a beat, Suguro jumped forward and Moody reacted just as fast. The wooden boards suddenly moved much faster, surrounding and following the exorcist, not giving him enough space to pick up pace fast enough to just dash trough the room at the Auror. Suguro stepped aside once, than twice, then had to duck and Moody grinned widely.

Suddenly, a big beam of blueish light shot from his wand, bigger than anything Harry ever saw and headed towards the ceiling. It never reached it. Instead it started to falling down, like a comet, slipping between the flying boards with perfect ease just to hit the floor with a small hiss. Before the spell even vanished completely, another one followed and after that a next one, bombarding the ground where the enemy was.

The exorcist whirled around, dodging and ducking, like in a some weird dance, his face – visible only during the flashes of bright light – wearing an expression of absolute concentration, a broom still in his hands.

It was a very short moment, not even a split of second, when Suguro's eyes widened and he rushed forward, avoiding the projectiles and the wood like he somehow knew exactly where it was going to be. Then, using the broomstick like pole, he jumped high, over the ring of broken wood and over the old Auror. Landing on all four, Suguro quickly pushed himself off the wall and turned towards Moody, aiming at the man's legs with the broom.

Alastor gasped, but jumped over the stick before it crashed into his only knee, his wand already commanding the animated items to once again attack his opponent. But the exorcist was too close and he pushed up the pace, taking the initiative. Moody aimed for his head with the next spell, but Suguro already moved aside, trying to smack the auror with his elbow. Alastor ducked, letting the punch pass him harmlessly and once again tried to curse the enemy.

Harry was just staring, observing the fight with his mouth open, unable to do anything. The spells were flying in the air like the most magnificent fireworks, covering the scene in thousands of tiny sparkles and flashes of bright colors. The two men were moving around each other in perfect harmony, like it was just some sort of an oriental dance and they trained for it for years.

Suguro suddenly turned around breaking the rhythm, smacking the end of the stick right into Moody's sternum, pushing air out of his lungs. He didn't even give the man to step away, but just hit him again, this time in his right hand with a loud smack.

Alastor's wand not even hit the floor, when he turned around and hit him again, this time right in the face with the switches, blinding him just for enough time to smash Alastor another time and force him down on the floor.

And then he stomped on Moody, placing his foot right between his shoulder blades.

"Woah!" Ron gasped. "Did you see that?"

Before Harry – or Hermione – managed to find any words at all, there was a crack. The railing Snape crashed into just a few moments ago fell apart. Then, there was another crack.

Suddenly, Molly Weasley and Tonks were standing by the stairs, looking around the place with confusion.

Well, the place looked like hell. There were dark scorching marks all over the place and the heavy, ancient chandelier ceased to exist at all, leaving behind only a few shards of glass, now sparkling sadly among the pile of loose wooden boards. In one corner of the room Remus Lupin was hovering over Arthur Weasley, shielding the still bound man from the wild spells. In another, Snape was trying to get his breath under control with Black standing over him, still holding a Protego charm active.

In the middle of this mess, the exorcist stood proudly, breathing heavily, but still ready to fight.

"What in the world happened here?" Nymphadora was the first one to regain her speech.

"Why is he standing on–" before Molly finished her question, a sudden flash of light cut through the air.

"A second wand!" Harry gasped.

Suguro either could move away, letting Moody go, or stand his ground and be hit with the unknown curse. As soon as he moved away, Alastor jumped onto his feet and punched him in the jaw, hard enough to draw blood.

"Think you're the only one here who can lay a punch?" Moody asked with a nasty smile.

Sirius and Lupin were now standing up, pointing their wands at Suguro, same as Tonks. Molly was the last one to reach for hers, but she didn't look afraid at all.

"You are surrounded!" Lupin warned him. "Please, just step back..."

"Like hell I would!" the exorcist growled, blood sipping down his chin.

There was something off in his eyes, something that wasn't there a moment before. It was hard and cold, and unmerciful. Utterly terrifying too.

Harry ran down the stairs, intuitively knowing that either he was going to stop all that madness right in this very moment, or something very bad was going to happen. He remembered what Suguro could do with fire pretty well.

"Suguro, I'm soo sorry!" Harry said quickly, before the exorcist moved into action. "I tried to tell them that they're being stupid 'and shouldn't, but...!"

"Not your fault, kid." the exorcist shrugged, tension in his shoulders vanishing as he breathed out. He still seemed to be ready to fight and looked around the place with a furrow on his brow but at least didn't seem like he was going all out. For now. The odd expression was still in his eyes.

"If I didn't tell them about what happened..."

"What's done is done," Suguro muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Where are we exactly?"

"Harry, don't...!"

"London," he said, feeling rather satisfied by doing so.

"Not normal part of the city, am I right? The place gives pretty dark vibe."

"What tipped you off?" Harry snorted.

"You don't want to know... but try get back home, the miasma here is thick enough to give anyone issues."

He blinked. It was really hard to not notice how many Coal Tars and other lesser demons occupied this place. Was it the reason why Suguro was acting so off? But then, these were just lesser demons, nothing to concern somebody like him.

"Are we uh… done now?" Sirius asked carefully.

"I hope so," Harry found himself saying. Funny, he hadn't even noticed that he opened his mouth. "I'm standing here!"

"So, these are that wizarding people of yours?" Suguro slightly raised his eyebrows. "Not a very charming bunch, to tell the truth."

"I told them it was a stupid idea," Harry explained, ignoring the loud gasps and protests of all the wizards at the sign that the Statue of Secrecy was breached. " But they don't believe in telephones."

"There's no need to be worry, young man," Mrs. Weasley smiled, in hopes to turn the conversation around before somebody got seriously hurt. "All we need from you is to have a little chat..."

"And you people just had to kidnap me for that?" Suguro snorted. "Pretty damn stupid!"

"That's not the way to treat your elders...!" she gasped.

"I don't give a shit about your opinion, got my own mother," the exorcist grimaced with a distaste. "Besides, a kidnapper lecturing people on good manners, that's rich!"

"Can somebody please unwrap me?" Mr. Weasley asked, probably trying to defuse situation a little bit. Or at least catch his wife attention before she gets into a brawl with the exorcist over his language of all things. She definitely sounds like she was about to, and the muggle wasn't helping at all, screaming right back at her.

"And what happened to you?" Sirius looked at him with curiosity.

"I tried to catch him," Arthur explained with a blush of embarrassment creeping up his cheeks. "He was faster."

"That I can guess," Sirius nodded. "But how, it's beyond me. By the way, I like what you've done with the place. Looks much better now!"

They somehow managed to defuse the situation. Or Harry managed to drag Suguro away, while Arthur and Tonks were leading Mrs. Weasley the other way, so the two wouldn't try and murder each other.

"You okay?" Harry asked quietly.

"I'm fine," the exorcist answered, is eyes still locked on the group of wizards, like he was expecting them to attack once more.

Well, they certainly looked pissed off, Harry had to admit that. They were definitely more roughed up that Suguro too, probably because a physical fight was not what they were expecting to meet, when they kidnapped a muggle at all. In their eyes, muggles seemed to be just these helpless people, who couldn't stand their ground against magic. But, considering most of their experiences with people without magic, that wasn't too strange. Harry remembered all too well how the Dursleys were freaking out if somebody even mentioned something supernatural around them. Probably there were other people just like them somewhere out there.

Before Harry decided what to do next, the Headmaster walked into the room. His robes – as flashy as ever – were slightly stained by a dark dust. So he probably shown up just now, using the Floo instead of just apparting in.

The ancient wizard looked around curiously before his eyes set on the exorcist. Suguro glared right back at him, proudly raising his chin.

Harry always knew that Dumbledore was quite a high person, but only now he realized how much the old man was towering over everybody else. So was Suguro. They looked almost like titans among the lesser men, both powerful, even in a completely different way. Harry gulped. The air seemed to be so thick, one could chop it with an axe.

"Hm, yes, that could've gone better…" the Headmaster muttered, slowly running one hand along his long beard. "Nonetheless, I must welcome you in our world and hope that even after such… inconvenient introduction, we will find a common ground."

"Inconvenient, my ass!" Hermione gasped somewhere behind Harry. "Those retards jumped me in the middle of fucking street!"

Mrs. Weasley and Alastor Moody never agreed more with each other than in that particular moment, both protesting against the language and the lack of respect the exorcist was showing towards somebody like Dumbledore. Snape sneered at him too, thought it probably was just his default expression.

But the Headmaster merely raised his hand, silencing them and continued the dialogue like nothing wrong had happened at all.

"I admit, it was a mistake of ours," he said, his eyes not leaving Suguro for a slightest moment. "But I assure you, we did it only because we are worried and we wanted to learn what exactly happened to Mr. Potter."

"And why would I want to answer your questions at all?" the exorcist merely raised an eyebrow. "You have no custody over him, thus I'm not obliged to release any sort of information about him. Quite opposite."

"You clearly don't know, who are you talking to, brat!" Moody hissed. "This is Albus Dumbledore, the most powerful man you will ever meet! Show respect!"

"Saw bigger," he shrugged, completely unfazed by the old Auror. "Besides, you already know all what is there to know: I've exorcised an evil spirit. That's it."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Think what you like," Suguro shrugged. "But the answer is not going to change because you don't like it."

That was it, to tell the truth. The adults were arguing some more, while the exorcist was repeating his stance on the issue and Harry felt like his head was spinning from all this madness.

It, Harry decided, was definitely the most awkward, the most uncomfortable moment of his life. It was so much worse than that time when Snape caught him on sneaking to the Hogsmeade back in his third year, or that time when Aunt Petunia cut his hair leaving only the fringe. The worst part was the fact that it wasn't going to end anytime soon.

xxx

The situation at the Grimmaur Place was rather awkward. Most of the Order members couldn't stay all the time, having jobs and families to tend to, but Mrs. Weasley demanded that at least somebody would stay with her to help around- and she never seemed to count Sirius among the useful people.

Because of that - and since the werewolves seemed to either ignore Lupin completely or even attack him - Remus pretty much moved in. He even choose his favorite armchair and was sitting in it when the small group of wizards decided to finally talk about the situation on hand.

Albus Dumbledore was spreaded comfortably in another one, nursing a cup of warm tea in his hands, while Snape and Moody both decided to stay standing, as far away from each other as possible. Alastor's magical eye was not leaving the Potion Master, like he expected him to show his true self any moment now and Snape was sneering back every now and then.

Sirius was the last person in the room and he was the only one walking. Constantly circling the table near the armchairs, stopping only for a short moment by the window to look for something on the outside through the old, yellowish curtains, then turning away to continue his way towards the wardrobe with collection of old, elegant porcelain on the shelves and a crotchet doily that was really sticking out with how bright and colorful it was - an effect of Mrs. Weasley trying to make the place look a little bit more homey and welcoming than it was.

"So," Remus coughed quietly. "May I ask what exactly are you going to do with our new... guest? Since he's not really friendly nor cooperating?"

"I like him," Sirius shrugged with a smirk on his face. "It was kind of awesome how he beaten you guys all on his own!"

"That was a little unexpected, I must admit that," Remus grimaced, carefully eyeing Snape but luckily, the man just grimaced and refrained from commenting. "But still, grabbing somebody off the streets like that... it just wasn't very wise."

"We just need some answers," Moody merely shrugged. "And since the gentle way is not working..."

This time both of his eyes turned, first towards Dumbledore, then slowly wandered towards Severus.

The old wizard seemed to share this sentiment.

"Severus, my boy, could you...?" Dumbledore asked gently.

"No, I couldn't." Snape only snarled in response, crossing hands over his chest.

"I know this isn't the best thing in the world, but you have to understand..." the old wizards started explaining in his usual kind and understanding voice.

"It's not about this, Albus," Snape grunted with a sour expression on his face. "You know rather well that I don't really care about all that ridiculousness."

"Then why you refuse?"

"I'm not refusing, I just can't do it. I tried when you were talking to him," he shook his head. "It's like hitting a stone wall. His mind is closed shut and I can't do anything about that."

"What are you saying?" Lupin shook his head. "He's a muggle! Muggles are not supposed to be able to use mind magic!"

"They are not supposed to use magic at all," Sirius rolled his eyes and then smirked. "But maybe our old friend is just a bit rusty, huh?"

"Don't you even dare...!" Snape growled, stepping towards him, a wand already in his hand.

"Hey, hey!" Lupin quickly walked between the two men before they started anything. They both were way too stressed, one because of living in a house arrest in the place he hated guts, the other for a whole different but as much important reason. But they were also grown men and should know that fighting among themselves won't solve anything. "This is not the time for it!"

"I do agree," Dumbledore nodded. "However unusual it is, we shouldn't fight over it. Sometimes strange things just happens. Even if this one is rather... troublesome."

"Troublesome? He's a muggle, that's supposed to be impossible in the first place!" Moody snorted. "Next time we check they will be running around with wands, throwing tripping hexes at each other!"

"You don't need a wand to use mind magic," Snape rolled his eyes, acting like he was forced to explain complete basics. "Besides, weren't we already suspecting that he might be a Squib?"

"Of muggle origins?" Sirius blinked. "That's just... weird!"

"Is your memory so short I need to remind you every five minutes about the simple fact that we don't know anything about this brat?" Snape sneered. "We don't know who his parents were and if there was anyone magical in his family at all. Merlin, even if we knew these things it would still be useless, considering his people happen to live on the other side of the globe!"

The fact that wizarding societies tended to keep to themselves almost all the time was not helping at all. The relationships were already strained after the war with Grindwald and with the rising of another Dark Lord in such short time, some wizarding communities decided to cut all the ties with English Ministry of Magic, including most of the east. The knowledge at the Order disposal – or what was possible to gather with moderate ease – was either completely outdated or just didn't exist at all besides few stories and legends that seemed to be more fairytales than anything truly useful. Even the families of wizards of foreign roots had no useful information, already living in the western countries for generations.

"Yes," Lupin sighed heavily. "At this point everything is possible. For all we know he might actually be magical and spontaneously casting illusion spells. Cheating himself and everybody else..."

"That's a nice theory, my boy," Dumbledore smiled slightly. "But there was no way for him to either know about Voldemort."

"Are you certain it was him?"

"Yes," he nodded. "There was no mistake. Besides, the wording that wraith used..."

Dumbledore stopped silent for a short moment and looked straight at Severus before he continued.

"The words the wraith used were one of a kind and not many people knows them."

Severus eyes widened slightly.

"Are you telling me...?"

"The prophecy, yes," Albus nodded. "There was no mistake."

"The Potter boy... he doesn't know?"

"He's still so young!" the old wizard sighed. "I know he need to learn about the prophecy sooner or later, but I just wanted..."

"Yeah, he deserve to have a little bit of childhood," Remus smiled slightly.

"Childhood is not going to save his butt when things will go south," Moody snorted.

"So what are you saying?"Sirius ran fingers through his hair with both of his hands, groaning with frustration. "That the guy is the real deal? Or a wizard, or something?"

"That we don't know," Lupin gently patted him on the shoulder. "But he seems to like Harry, at least. And it goes both ways."

"The Potter boy is still just a brat," Snape sneered. "way to trusting..."

"Yeah, because any kid would be absolutely trusting after what happened last year," Lupin shook his head. "or any other year, to tell the truth."

"The fact that they are friends is a good thing," Dumbledore took a sip of his tea, then put the cup away on the table.

"How exactly?" Sirius frowned.

"Seeing how we are treating the boy, how we are not doing him any charm, but caring for him and keeping him from danger... that would speak volumes, don't you think?"

"Well, he might be not as angry as us as he could be..." Lupin murmured. "But that is not going to make him actually like us or even trust us any time soon."

"Our special guest is well trained," Moody added. "That means somebody at least explained to him that trusting nice kidnappers in not the brightest idea."

"You're telling us that because he beaten you. With a broom. That wasn't even charmed to be magical, it was just a broom," Sirius chuckled. "But you could learn fighting on your own, you know?"

"Yes, he did kick my butt," Moody rolled his one eye. "But he wasn't fighting like somebody who just liked to punch people in the face. Nay, he was taught to fight for his life."

"What are you trying to say, Alastor?"

"That if not for the Potter brat, the situation would escalate very quickly and in a very nasty way," Moody grimaced. "Trust me, if he was serious we would have fatalities on our side."

"Are you saying that he's capable of...?" Lupin asked carefully.

"In self defense?" Moody snorted. "Anybody is. But yes, he is dangerous."

"If you say so," Sirius just shrugged. "But what now? We still have all the question unanswered, but now Harry is not talking to us. And the second guy definitely won't talk any time soon..."

"And since he seems to be a natural occlument then the Veritaserum is going to be useless too," Moody said before Sirius managed to open his mouth..

"So," Severus looked at Dumbledore and raised an eyebrow. "What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to give them some time."

"Don't you think that of all the things time is not something we can just waste like that!"

"Harry needs time to get used to the new situation," Dumbledore said gently. "And our guest needs some time to learn that we are not an awful people."

"What, are you planning to wait for the Stockholm Syndrome to set in?" Severus raised both eyebrows in disbelief.

"I just want for him to see that we are not evil!"

Snape just groaned.

"Stockholm Syndrome it is."

xxx

The fact that the unusual guest on Grimmaur Place wasn't so keen to spend the time with other people living in there wasn't all that strange, at least not in Molly's eyes. Being snatched like that definitely wasn't the nicest thing to went through, but she hoped that the young man would warm up to people eventually and tell them what they needed to know.

Because exorcism clearly wasn't the answer, these things were impossible!, she thought and shook her head.

The more troubling was the fact that to avoid all of them as much as possible the young man decided that skipping meal was an acceptable idea. Molly highly disagreed but at the same she somewhat understood his point of view; probably she herself wouldn't be so keen to join her kidnappers during dinner. So Molly decided to bring him food and let eat in solitude. Only it wasn't really working; the self-proclaimed exorcist ignored almost everything.

"Really," she groaned. "And here I am, having so much trouble of making all the kids eat any vegetables...!"

She almost suspected that he did that just to mess with her. But it was the second day and Molly was starting to worry. People weren't supposed to act like rabbits.

The only sensible thing to do was go and confront him about eating habits, so Molly decided to do just that.

She found him like expected, sitting with his legs crossed and eyes closed. Sirius, who decided for once to be useful told her all about it when she asked; it seemed that he spied a bit on unaware man as a dog. And Black said that the guest wasn't moving much. Just sitting there, sometimes reciting quietly things in his own language. It didn't sound dangerous, he said. More like some sort of a player and since the man was posing as an exorcist...

Molly coughed, hoping it would get his attention. There was no way to not hear it, but he ignored her anyway.

"Excuse me?" she said, but her question stayed unanswered.

Molly frowned. "Is everything alright?"

This time the young man actually opened his mouth and spoke.

"No."

"What's wrong?" she asked, now worried. They hadn't met under the best of circumstances and the whole situation was rather awkward, but she really would hate

"I'm kidnapped, you dumb woman!" he groaned.

"Do not use that language with me, young man!" Molly raised her voice, feeling growing annoyance. Here she was, all worried that something was wrong and he acted like that!

"I'm going to speak however I want," he just shrugged.

"Well then, if you only go and tell us what really happened..." she started.

"I already did that, but you people seems to deny the reality."

"Because what you told us was ridiculous!" Molly groaned. "No such thing could ever happen, that's impossible!"

"For someone who breaks laws of physics by daily basis you sure are full of doubt."

"Stop making fun of me!"

"Then stop being so stupid and let me go," the so called exorcist rolled his eyes with annoyance. "Seriously, you are not going to learn anything new and I do have a life."

"And you are free to return to it as soon as you tell us what we need to know!"

"Then we are going to spend a lot of time doing nothing," he snorted. "Unless you actually want me to lie my way out of here."

"And what you are you doing now, huh?" Molly challenged him, putting hands on her hips. "Honestly, these stories about exorcising ghosts, that's just ridiculous! Muggles can't see the ghosts! And besides, they are absolutely harmless!"

"Harmless?" Suguro laughed humorlessly. "I actually should be jealous of you, you know. Such ignorance… that goes only with the lack of any sort of experience. You're so freaking lucky, to not understand what you're talking about."

By all means, Molly wanted to argue back, because he was the one who knew nothing. They were at war here, not even two decades after the last one suddenly ended. She still remembered the terror of it, the feeling keeping her awake long after the nightfall and was still bearing the memory of her brothers – and so many more people – dying horribly.

But there was something in his voice, a bitter tone, that she subconsciously understood, even if she was never going to admit it out loud, because the foreigner was just plain infuriating. So she just walked away with an angry huff, promising to herself to not care for his well–being anymore.

With her back turned, she couldn't see the wolfish smile creeping onto his face.

xxx

"That..." Harry said, slowly putting down his end of spying device. "Was interesting."

They were sitting in the room next to the one the talk took place. It was one of these that were currently safe, because they banished all the annoying little beings that decided to made their nests here, but it wasn't clean yet. The place smelled not that good and a thick layer dusk was covering everything, so they had to be careful. Bringing any of the dirt outside would bring the wraith of Mrs. Weasley on them and many uncomfortable question from all the other adults.

"Interesting?" Ron gasped. "My mom is scary when she's angry and I never saw her so furious! He not even blinked!"

"Well," Hermione blinked. "Mrs. Weasley was trying to be nice..."

"And it was working like a charm."

"Don't get snarky on me," she winkled her nose. "It was still a bad thing to do, to offend somebody like that!"

"He was kidnapped," Harry pointed out. " Still is. Wouldn't you be angry in his situation?"

He had a point of course. To tell the truth Hermione had no idea how she would react in a situation like that. She really hoped that she would never find herself in that sort of trouble.

"Maybe he's trying to make people so pissed off that they would just let him go?" Ron said with a small shrug.

"Are you serious?"

"I think he is downstairs."

"Ron," Harry sighed. "Let the pun die. It's a bad one."

"Seriously?"

"Ron."

"Okay, okay!" the redhead raised his hand in the air declaring his defeat. "Guess it was already beaten to the death..."

"Yes it was," Harry sighed.

"It was still sort of awesome," Ron murmured. "I would be scared out of my wits, just standing in front of angry mom...!"

"So," Hermione started in a matter of fact voice. "Are you liking or hating him now?"

"I don't know!" Ron moaned. "I'm confused!"

Both Harry and Hermione snorted. Their friend just seemed to be unable to make his mind once and for all when it came to the exorcist. First, Ron decided that the man was awesome simply because he could wipe floor with so many people at once. But then, he suddenly changed his mind. Probably because the exorcist was rather vocal about Ron leaving his clothes all over the place instead of folding them and putting back in the closet. Their redhead friend was still blushing after being reminded of the whole experience – the twins just loved to bring it up every few hours, just to see the reaction.

xxx

The first day, Joseph was only a little bit annoyed, but other than that, he acted completely normal. On the second day, if Mbali was looking for him, she could easily find him by one of the windows; a phone in his hand and gaze wandering between the cell and the street outside. By the third day, the man started to act ridiculous.

"Seriously, the kid is not that dumb," she said, hoping that if he talked about stuff he would feel slightly better.

"That's exactly what has me worried," he grunted, stubbornly staring at the street outside. "Suguro knows exactly how dangerous the job could be and what people are going to think when you decide to not show up all of sudden!"

Mbali sighed.

"He's not just a newbie," she said, putting hand on his shoulder in conforming gesture. "He probably got more experience than many of the people around here, Jo."

"And that's change things how exactly?"

That made her groan with irritation.

Mbali joined the Order ten years after the Blue Night happened, so she missed the worst of it; the times, when everything was completely chaotic and people were dying horribly left and right.

During that times, Joseph suddenly was promoted from a freshly-baked exorcist, very low on the ladder, to a guy who was supposed to know his stuff. And had to somehow take control over a group of over twenty people who just gained the ability to see the unexplained.

Mbali supposed that while the time was passing, some things just got stuck with you forever.

"You pushed him away from the leg work, right?"

"Yes," Joseph nodded with a grimace on his face. "But he was still working on a long-term side project. That one which disappeared about two weeks ago."

Mbali couldn't help herself, but snorted quietly, amused. O'Callaghan and Suguro might have come from two completely different parts of the world and had different experiences too, but in the end, they acted a lot like each other.

"Do you think it is somehow connected?" she continued.

"It might be it," Joseph sighed heavily. "But I'm not sure if it's a good thing. Apparently the things on the so called other side are not very good at the moment."

"As I say, Suguro is a clever little shit," Mbali patted him on the shoulder again, then stepped away. "I would be more worried about the merry kidnappers than about him. Want some tea?"

"If you would be a dear..." Joseph murmured.

Mbali huffed, slightly annoyed. He didn't even meant that, just saying things on the autopilot, not because he really wanted tea, but because this was that sort of thing one was just supposed to say in a situation like this one.

Well, she could use this to force down his throat some chamomile tea instead the black one. If she was lucky enough he wouldn't even notice that he was drinking something herbal instead of the real tea and it could calm him a bit.

When she returned, she found Joseph hovering over a tablet lying on the table, with a piece of paper in his hand.

She carefully put the cups down.

"I should've done it yesterday," Joseph said quietly, not raising his eyes from the tablet. "But I hoped that he would just show up, with his phone busted, or something."

"You're contacting his friends," Mbali slightly raised eyebrows.

"Well, they are worried anyway," the older exorcist shrugged. "Since they have that clever system for situations exactly like this one. I'm only confirming that he isn't around."

She hummed with agreement, observing him with a small pang of satisfaction. He was actually drinking the tea, not noticing the different taste. It was no good drugs or anything, but herbs still were better than nothing.

"I'm going to make sure that we have a room or two ready to use," Mbali said after a moment, smiling slightly. "And you really should get some rest. For the moment, there's nothing you can do."

She was right and Joseph really hated that, but there really was nothing for him to do. Just leaving the message and that was it.

He couldn't even contact Seven, because the blasted wizard was always the one to show up, not the other way around. Besides, even if he decide to hunt the Unspeakable down - he knew where was the way into the magical world - he would gather a lot of unwanted attention. And probably end up with his memory wiped out to the point he would turn into a vegetable, because these people were really paranoid about mundane people entering their chubby domain.

No mention he didn't know which side actually grabbed the Potter kid and if it was the same group that decided to borrow Suguro.

All Joseph could do, was to wait.

He hated waiting.

xxx

Ryuji was angry, but it was hard for him to point who or what he was pissed off the most.

The wizards definitely were at fault here - they just attacked him right in the middle of the street and then teleported him someplace else. Place that was infested with Coal Tars and other unpleasant beings were waiting in the corners.

Suguro was angry at himself too, because they succeed at their merry kidnap attempt. He should have been more careful, really. The fact that people usually weren't grabbing other people right out of the street wasn't explaining why he let himself get surprised in the first place.

That just shouldn't happen in the first place, he shouldn't put his guard down at any moment, no matter how tired he was from spending all day at school, hunting for teachers to beg them for letting him write all the stuff he missed because of his job.

The whole fight would probably end up better - or worse - if he had all his stuff instead of a bag with a few books about financial management inside. On the other hand, shooting somebody, no matter mundane human or wizard, wasn't very high on his list of things to do in his life. And it would definitely freak his merry kidnappers way more than a broken nose.

At least now he knew for sure that Harry was fine.

The problem was, people didn't know if Suguro was fine; he hadn't logged in since yesterday, so Konekomaru definitely started to think that something went awry, he was checking the logs more than once every day. And that was bad, Ryuji hated making him worry, necessary or not.

And there was Joseph O'Callaghann too. The man was still pissed off at Ryuji for risking his life in a dumb way. Getting kidnapped definitely was not a thing to put him in better mood...

Suguro grit his teeth.

Should he try to get out of the building and then run back to his room, to act like nothing happened at all? It was quite tempting. Besides, now he knew that getting grabbed by a wizard was not the best idea because of the teleporting skill, so he wouldn't make that mistake again.

On the other hand, there was Harry. And a war hidden by both sides, still dangerous for anybody who was unlucky enough to happened be on the way. Even the so called good guys acted like the people without magic weren't really important and they could deal with them however they wished. That was just wrong. But to do something about that, somebody had to be on the inside, learning and observing... So, Suguro decided to stay kidnapped for the moment.

Meditation was probably one of the most useful things he knew. It not only helped with the concentration - which was a necessity in his job - and clearing his mind, but with other things too. For whatever reason, people usually very absolutely sure that since he wasn't reacting towards what was going on he wasn't paying attention at all. Like his brain was elsewhere altogether. Because of that Suguro could shamelessly listen on whatever conversation the merry wizarding kidnappers decided to have in hearing distance.

They really were a talkative bunch; they also decided that talking about him, while standing in the doorway was a totally fine thing to do.

Ridiculous people, Ryuji decided.

Thanks to all that conversations going on, he had a pretty decent idea what he could find in this weird building and where. Both the library and the study sounded like a very interesting places to check out. Apparently the house was owned by a family of a rather dark name - and not only literally - and the whole place was still full of all sorts of interesting books. It seemed definitely like a good idea to get his hands on these and at least skim through their content.

He couldn't do that while everyone inside was up or guarding him, but after a few days the wizards got used to him not socializing with anyone but Harry. Hell, he was sure that they were forgetting about him now and then, since from their perspective he never was doing anything interesting, just sitting in his corner.

Besides, Ryuji had nothing against waiting.

* * *

**A/N: **Hey. Hey. This is quite awkward, isn't it? I'm sorry for the unexpected hiatus. The real life decided to remodel my timetable and then other issues showed up, so I sort of crashed and burned. Sorry. In the next month I'm going to try and edit all the chapters - just prettying things up and so on. Nothing story-wise important, though. 


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Hello again!  
Another chapter, another fight. I also managed to confuse myself with names and when to use capital letters - this chapter hadn't seen a beta yet, so there definitely is a small issue with muggle vs. Muggle. Sorry!  
( I'm going to quietly post the edited version when I'm done with going through all the other already posted chapters. I just didn't want to do another surprise-hiatus)

**Chapter 7**  
**What Lurks In The Darkness**

Ginny carefully entered the room, holding firmly the precious book she borrowed from Harry in her hands. The adults seemed to not know what they were supposed to do with the new guest after they failed at making him to admit… something. She wasn't sure what exactly they wanted to hear from him. So he was just sort of there, usually just sitting alone in that room, with his legs crossed.

The exorcist was still inside and it looked like he hadn't even moved from his spot.

His eyes were closed and brow furrowed a little. He looked odd, unmoving like a statue of some sort of a monk, but wearing jeans and a white, modern shirt. A thin, golden chain was shining on his neck, at one point tangled with a necklace made from wooden beads.

"Are you going to sit there all day?" Ginny finally asked.

"Are you going to stare at me all day?"

"My, you can talk!" she gasped.

"Obviously."

That short exchange wasn't satisfying at all and he seemed like he wasn't in the mood to talk at all.

Well, nothing strange there, Ginny decided. He probably didn't even knows why the members of The Order decided to snatch him in the first place.

So anything he said could be used against him, she remembered that sentence mentioned by one of her muggleborn peers. It was meant as a joke that not many people understood, so it had to be explained - and wasn't funny, because any joke you had to explain could not be funny.

But Ginny meant business and she wasn't walking away without hearing the answers for her questions.

"Are you going to ignore me?" she asked.

He was silent.

Well, that answered that.

"Look, I know that you're angry and I think I wouldn't want to talk to anybody in your place too," she sighed. "But I need... I..."

The exorcist still ignored her, completely concentrated on whatever he was doing while just sitting there. Ginny felt the frustration growing within her. All the feeling she was keeping away from others, all the scary things inside her mind... She needed answers and she needed them now.

So she did the logical thing.

"Talk to me, goddammit!" she growled and kicked him in the back, hard.

Harder than she expected to, but at least there was a reaction. Not the one she wanted, but still.

"What the hell?!" he groaned, finally turning towards her. There was a painful expression on his face and he was holding on his side too, slightly bending to the side. "You can't just walk in and kick somebody in the kidney!"

"That was your fault!" she shouted back immediately. "You could just talk to me in the first place!"

"Kicking is still not the answer!"

"Well, you definitely pay more attention now!" Ginny snarled right back at him.

He took a deep breath through teeth, like he was about to scream at her some more or maybe even do something more. She stood her ground, ready for anything at all. Almost anything. Her knees were not shaking under her at all, Ginny proudly refused to accept that part of the reality.

"Then talk," he said with a deep sigh, the anger nowhere to be found in his voice.

The sudden change was so odd and unexpected, Ginny had no idea how she was supposed to react at all. It was probably the whole idea too, to embarrass her enough to make her go away, or something like that.

She furrowed her brow and opened mouth to finally ask all the questions she needed answers for. But suddenly, she couldn't find the right words. So she just waved with the book in front of his face, hoping that this would suffice.

His eyes widened slightly, instantly recognizing the battered volume, or maybe he was just alerted by the sudden movement. She just kicked him, after all, he had all the rights to be wary.

Slowly, his gaze moved from the book towards her.

"Is this real?" Ginny asked. "Things in there... they really exist?"

He keep staring at her.

"Answer me, you bastard!" she cried. "Answer me! I need to know, I really do! Because I'm not... I'm not crazy!"

The exorcist sighed.

"Sit," he said.

"What?" Ginny blinked, surprised. there was something wet on her cheek too. She blushed and wiped her face with sleeve of her shirt. Perfect. Here she was pitiful enough to cry in front of a guy that her dad kidnapped not so long ago.

"Sit," he repeated. "And no, you're not crazy."

She blinked again and obediently sat down on the floor in front of him, not knowing what weirded her out more: the fact, that she actually get the man talking when people like Dumbledore failed or the sudden change in the tone of his voice. Before he sounded snappish and angry, like he was about to attack them or took offence by the sole fact that they were even trying to talk to him. Now however... he sounded nice.

"Can you tell me when you started to see these things?"

"I..." she bit her lip. All of sudden, the relief felt like it was too much. Her eyes burned, her throat hurt and she barely could breathe through her nose. "You exorcised Him from Harry, right?"

He nodded, so Ginny continued. "It was similar with me, I think. At my first year at school I had that diary and He somehow was inside. The more I wrote, the stronger he was getting. If not for Harry..."

"You never told anybody about what you could see, right?"

"I didn't want them to worry," Ginny said, admitting her defeat and reaching for a tissue to wipe her nose. She didn't want to look like a weak crybaby, but constant sniffing and stuff dripping from her nose definitely was no way to do that. "They were worried enough when I almost died. Besides, I was sure that seeing weird stuff would pass."

But it didn't. Every morning she hoped that this time when she will open her eyes, the air would be free of things that couldn't exist, that the shadows would stop moving on their own and each morning, she was disappointed. At some point, she decided to stick with Luna Lovegood, that weird girl who was talking about unknown monsters in hopes, that she would hear something useful, something that would explain what was going on, but that didn't work either.

"I must admit, you're a really strong person."

Ginny's eyes widened in surprise. "How come?"

"Usually people break pretty quickly under that sort of a pressure," he explained. "And here you are, enduring for years."

"Maybe I'm just a really good liar," Ginny murmured, pulling her legs up close. "Why are you helping me anyway? You refused to talk to everybody else."

The exorcist grimaced slightly.

"Guess, I'm just a fucking priest first," he said. "And I don't like to be kicked either."

"You're a priest?" Ginny blinked. He definitely collided with her image of old dude in a black robe with a cross somewhere on his person. The crazy hair – now bind on the back of his head in a small ponytail, so they wouldn't fell into his eyes –, the many, many earrings, his whole appearance; it was all as unpriesty as it was humanly possible.

"Not a catholic one," he chuckled under his nose. "But the basics are pretty much the same everywhere. How much did you read anyway?"

"Not much," Ginny winkled her nose with displeasure. "I couldn't read at night, because I didn't want anybody to know what I was doing and I pretty much just borrowed it..."

"So ask," he smiled slightly. "It's not like I'm going anywhere."

xxx

Alastor Moody definitely was in foul mood and not because some foreign brat managed to best him in hand to hand combat. He wasn't good at it, not anymore, not with all these handicaps he managed to collect during the years.

He probably should start using something more stable than his wooden leg anyway if war was coming, the Japanese brat proved it.

No, it was the other things that didn't sit with him well. Just when in the world Order of Phoenix turned into merry bunch of kidnappers anyway? They were supposed to be the good side, that one with high morals and kinda stupid because of it. Grabbing brats barely old enough to drink definitely was not something in their style.

The other thing, this so called exorcist was used to fighting for his life. People who were just trained and never dealt with the real situation were not reacting like hat. There was no hesitation, the movement was fluid, even grabbing that stupid broom was an automatic response.

That was... he wouldn't say disturbing, since many young people joined the fight in the first war when they were even younger and it would have been really, really helpful if they had the same skill set. But Moody still felt uneasy.

Somebody, somewhere in the world had an army of people capable of going against magic like it was nothing. He really wanted to know who and since when exactly.

There was several places where he could start looking for his answers and Alastor hated every single one of them. But Dumbledore naturally just had to keep his mouth shut, so the old auror was forced to do thing the hard way.

"Moody!" Allois Quickley opened his arms in jovial welcome and Alastor scowled painfully. This was one of the reasons why he wasn't so keen of showing up in the Ministry building anymore. Stupid, touchy people. Quickley was the perfect example of this group, unable to keep himself from wrapping his arm around pretty much anybody he knew, like shaking hands was not enough for him, or something. Even pushing him away wasn't working, since his long, spidery limbs somehow always managed to be attached to anything – or anybody – as long as he wanted them to be."What are you doing here?"

"The usual," he grunted. "Somebody has to keep an eye on how things are going here."

"I assure you, everything is perfectly fine."

"Oh?" Moody snorted. "So you finally managed to catch Sirius Black? How in the world have I missed that?"

The auror's face turned sour.

"Now, don't be like that," Quickley grunted. "You know we're doing everything possible to..."

"And you are failing at it spectacularly," Moody cut in before the auror managed to finish the sentence. "Let's face it, since the war ended this training is still shitty and nobody is doing anything about that."

"We are doing just fine!"

"Tell me that again after you catch Black. Or even one of those jolly saps from the Quidditch cup, then I would believe you."

The answer was just grunt and some muttering under the nose, but Alastor really wasn't paying attention to that. He hoped the idiot would bug of soon, so he could visit his other acquaintances around here.

During his time as an auror he managed to make so called friends and more than few of them owed him thing or two.

Quickley was as hard to shoo away as usual and Moody was stuck observing how auror training was going. Till the moment he started throwing things at the brats, because they were completely hopeless and couldn't even dodge a chair when it was flying at them. He wasn't even using magic, he just picked it up and did it in the muggle way and the only reaction he received was the sound of outrage and a painful scowl.

Merlin help them and hit Voldemort with a lightning strike, because otherwise they all were going to die. Or at least it was the impression Moody had when he left them to be ridiculous away from him. As far away as possible, since compared to them, Tonks had the grace of a finest dancer.

The lower levels of the Ministry of Magic were as creepy as he remembered them. The corridors were badly lit, with strange shadows dancing on the walls and the ceiling was much, much closer than in any place else in the whole building. Even Alastor, who never counted himself among the highest people, felt like he was about to hit a lamp with his head at any moment.

The corridors were also narrow and were taking sharp turns without any warning, creating an impressive labyrinth, where it was easy to sneak upon an unwanted guest. Or any other sort of a guest, the Unspeakables had a rather nasty sense of a humor as a whole.

"Fancy seeing you here, Alastor," a voice said, just from behind him.

Moody groaned. Unspeakables were also overusing the invisibility spells. Thought that one actually made some sort of a sense, since people couldn't bother a man when they were unable to tell if the man was in the same room or not.

"I'm looking for something," Alastor said.

"Of course you are!" the invisible person laughed. "Why else would you be here?"

"Can you give me the information I want?"

"Lassie, if you were anybody else, I would throw you out of here this very minute," the Unspeakable sighed and shook his head, dropping the spell at the same moment.

At least now Alastor could see who he was speaking to, through it wasn't that much of a help. Like all the others, the woman was wearing expressionless mask and lousy robes. For all Alastor knew, even her gender could be a lie. Unspeakables were always fond of screwing with people when it came to their identity.

At least this one he definitely knew, since she was talking to him instead of throwing fancy newfound spells in his direction.

"We bumped into something curious," he continued. "And Dumbledore as always is keeping his mouth shut. "

"Of course he is," the Unspeakable nodded, definitely amused by his choice of words. "So what you have found this time?"

"An exorcist."

"Huh," she said. "That's interesting."

"You know something about them?"

"Try going muggle sometime," she shrugged. "They are hardly hiding, just bump into a church and tell the priest you're having problems with ghosts and they will give you directions to find one."

"Why nobody in our world don't know about them?"

"Because ignoring muggles is easier?"

"This definitely wasn't the usual hopeless muggle," Alastor grimaced. It was hard to ignore the sarcasm in her voice.

"You actually fought one of them?" the woman giggled.

"Somehow that happened," he agreed.

She hummed, rocking on the balls of her feet, before she answered him. "Well, then you bumped into a Knight, I think."

"Knight?"

"I don't know much about them, not my playground," she admitted. "But the exorcists are way more organized than the magical world is. Depending on the way they fight, they divided their people by the specialties. Knights are specialized in a close combat."

"Are you telling me that muggles are running around and beating dark creatures with their fists?!"

"Something like that. Usually it's a stick. Or a sword. I'm pretty sure I heard about one with a chainsaw… trust me, they are a creative bunch."

"This is insane!"

"Definitely," she agreed. "But it's working."

"Is this everything you can tell me about them?"

"If you want to know more, I can ask the guy who's leading the division working with them," she shrugged. "He can tell you many things if he feel like it."

Alastor couldn't help himself, but gasp."You are working with them?"

"Oh, Lassie! You, of all people should know that we are everywhere!"

xxx

"Why you're in such a foul mood, Alastor?" Mundungus welcomed him with a crooked smile, then continued to wreak havoc upon kitchen table, devouring the food in haste, probably afraid of Molly Weasley catching him in the act.

"I tried to find out something about our... guest here," Moody grunted. "And I still think Dumbledore must be finally turning senile to believe something like that! Muggles banishing ghosts! Ridiculous!"

"And did you find anything?" Mundungus asked, not raising his eyes from the food.

"Only that the Unspeakables must be mental too!" He groaned and then grimaced. They could be lying too, having their own agenda in this whole mess. Wouldn't be the first time. "Why I'm even talking to you?"

"Speaking your worries out loud is supposed to help," the man shrugged. "Or something like that."

"Merciful Merlin, did you just put your finger into that meat pie?" After Mung nodded, Alastor groaned. "Well, at least I know what I'm not eating tonight."

"Whatever suits you. I have to tell, this is a one mean pie! In a good way," Mung smiled with a satisfaction and barfed. "Anyhow, you seem to be unhappy with that few answers you've got, aren't you?"

"And why are you interested in my problems?"

"Let's just say I can prove if he's a real deal or not, and quickly," Mung grinned widely.

"And how exactly would you do that?" Alastor snorted.

"All I need is his backpack. And his wallet, I think..."

"I am so not helping you rob a man-"

"That one you have already kidnapped?" Mundungus chuckled.

"This is not funny!"

"And I'm not joking!" Mung rolled his eyes and then, after a moment of consideration helped himself to a sausage. Chewing, he continued. "You see, the muggle world is an annoying one. To do anything out there, you have to prove that you are who you tell you are. Like at the Gringotts, but with humans instead of goblins."

"Where are you going with that?"

"Well, the Exorcists are not any different," he shrugged and took another bite. "So our little guest should carry something with him."

"Muggle documents are easy to forge," Alastro rolled his eyes. "Even muggles are doing that!"

"Documents, yes, but other things?" he smirked. "They are almost like a police, just not as good known. They carry that funny colorful thing with them, easy to recognize when you know what you're looking for."

"And you know what it is?"

"That's it! You finally got it!"

"And how can I know that you're even telling the truth?"

"Now, now, Alastor, why would I lie to you!"

"Oh, I can think about a few reasons," Moody grunted. "But fine. Prove it to me that you know what you're talking about."

They moved to the study, where they temporary kept stuff of their guest, just for the sake of keeping him from trying anything stupid. Like running away, like any sane man would try to. Not that his backpack would be that much of a help. In the bag there was just a bunch of books, that Moody not even cared to look at too closely, a wallet and a few others items, completely useless in breaking in or out.

Alastor took the wallet instantly, not trusting Mung with it at all. Robbing really wasn't the part of the plan. Inside, he found things to be no different than in any other muggle wallet he stumbled upon. A bit of these funny paper money, some coins and a bunch of plastic cards, most of them with Japanese letters on them.

"Here," Mung tossed him something.

It was a small black book, with a set of legitimation inside, half of them in English and the other half in the unfamiliar Japanese signs.

"What in the world are you two doing here?" Molly Weasley was standing in the doorway, looking at them with a disapproval. "Honestly! Going through somebody's things like that!"

"Well, since the brat didn't feel like introducing himself..." Alastor shrugged and handed her the black cook. "Here."

"Harry already told us what his name is!" she protested.

"And I wanted to know if it was even a real one!"

Well, it surprisingly enough was. And the black legitimation said that he indeed was an exorcist and not even a newbie, but with some sort of an experience under his belt. Though Alastor had no idea how exactly the ladder looked like or it even was real.

"Oh, here it is!" Mung happily picked up one of the items. It was just a simple brooch with blue and red stones in it, nothing special.

"And this is going to prove that he's the real deal how exactly?" Alastor snorted.

"Well, if he's a real deal," Mung murmured, poking at the colorful elements. "Then there is that little trick with this thing..."

Suddenly a thin, shining black sprung out of the brooch with a quiet click.

Molly gasped, startled and Alastor couldn't help himself but raised his eyebrows. A thin, sharp blade shoot up from the bottom of the item, shining menacingly in the light. It wasn't a very long blade, but it still was a very unexpected one.

"Oh, here we go!" Mung grinned happily. "Well, bite me!"

"A knife?" Moody asked. "All that for a bloody knife?"

"Well, you definitely didn't expected that," Mung shrugged, carefully checking the blade. "And besides, all of the real Exorcists are carrying that stuff around, like your Auror shields, but actually useful for something."

xxx

Once again, Alastor Moody was walking along the long corridors of the Ministry of Magic and once again he was in a rather foul mood.

The weather outside seemed to agree with him, with strong wind almost bending trees over and heavy rain attacking mercilessly everything on it's way. But on the inside, no one could even tell that; the world visible in the magical windows was cheerful and sunny as always, like nothing could go wrong.

Alastor snorted and reached to his pocked, where the plastic, muggle ID was. It was slick and the hard edges were digging almost painfully in the palm on his hand.

At least now he had a face to show, when he will be asking questions.

But that didn't change the fact that a bastard like Mung held so many answers in the first place; with all that illegal business he was constantly mixed in, Moody was really sure that the menace had no time to mess in the muggle world. Apparently, he was wrong. How many days Moody lost, just because he ignored the obvious source of information?

Alastor shook his head. Blasted Mundungus and blast his knowledge that came out of nowhere!

It wasn't even the only one thing that caused his irritation. No, the so-called exorcist suddenly became an even more dangerous figure, like being trained wasn't enough. To think, that for this whole time, he had a well hidden knife. Even muggles were dangerous with weapons. If the brat decided he wanted to get free... there was nothing, absolutely nothing that could keep him from stabbing everyone in their sleep.

Merlin, such a bunch of idiots they were!

He noticed a movement behind, like somebody was planning on surprising him from behind. But pretty much everybody knew already that it was impossible. These few fools, who couldn't comprehend that simple fact, usually avoided him anyway, freaked out by his face alone.

"You again," the person said, stopping a few feet behind him.

"Do we know each other?"

"You should know well enough by now, that this question is not going to be answered, Lassie."

"Well," he grunted. "That's good enough for me, I guess."

"So?" the person tilted head. "What it is this time?"

"Same as before," Moody rolled his natural eye, while the magical one continued glaring at the Unspeakable. This time the figure seemed to be male. Ridiculously high too, with thin, almost spider-like arms and legs. The heavy robes were only making things worse, making him looks more like a hatstand than a real breathing human. To think up until now Moody was sure that nobody had longer limbs than that Quickley guy! "I believe you do know about my little... problem?"

"Kidnapping, yes, you should be charged," the Unspeakable nodded lazily. "And probably disciplinary removed from your position, but since you're already retired... yay for you, I guess."

"Stop joking," Moody groaned. "I just want to ask if one of you would be able of telling me some more about that problem of mine."

"How would I do that, if you refuse to let me into your mind?"

"Wouldn't a muggle photo would be enough?"

The man made a small, happy sound and clapped his hands together. "An ID? Splendid!"

"So? Do you know who in the Merlin's name this brat is?"

"I do," the Unspeakable nodded slowly, all traces of humor completely gone. "And I'm going to give you a good advice. Give him back."

Moody frowned, slightly surprised by the sudden change of behavior. "What?"

"Put him back where you found him," The Unspeakable said slowly and carefully, like he was trying to do everything in his might to be understood. "And say that you are very, very sorry."

"Are you joking? Because this isn't even funny!"

"I'm not," the Unspeakable grunted with noticeable annoyance. "But you're trying to bit more than you can chew, Lassie. This is not just a random exorcist you've caught yourself."

"So who exactly the brat is? Son of somebody influential?" Alastor shook his head. "And even if, he's still just a muggle. I took his knife, there's no way-"

Moody had to admit, the kid was good. Really good and unafraid of causing actual damage to his opponents. Not to mention that blasted broom he seemingly randomly choose as a weapon. The memory of twigs jabbing him in the eye were still very fresh in Alastor's memory.

However, the spider-like man didn't even let him finish the sentence. So the spectacular abilities were not the case... or at least there was something more into Suguro that the brat showed.

"Oh, I'm not talking about that!" the Unspeakable waved hand at him in a dismissive gesture. "If that was the case I wouldn't waste my time on you at all."

"Then what causes you to freak out so much about him?"

"It's not what he is - though being a future head of a temple give him a certain edge, I admit. No, it's who he is," the Unspeakable stated. Then he made a small annoyed nose, like he just tasted something really sour. "Or rather, who he is chubby with."

Moody groaned. "Stop playing games, already!"

"We don't like to work with Aurors," the Unspeakable suddenly changd the topic. "You people are always so rash, so self-righteous... It's a small mistake that the Magical World is still hidden with guys like you running around."

Alastor grit his teeth and waited, not sure if the offensive monologue was leading to anything at all.

"You see," the man continued in unusually cheerful voice, slowly walking around Moody once, then again and again. "We prefer to be more subtle. Observe things from the shadows and just poke at the right people at the right moment, giving them ideas, pushing in the right direction..."

He sighed in a rather theatrical manner, then suddenly turned, staring right in Alastor's face. Or at least it seemed like he was staring at him. The charmed mask was expressionless and there was nothing to be seen through the eyeholes at all. "But there are others. Those, who we prefer to not get near at all."

"What," Alastor snorted. "You have a great list of people you're not supposed to poke with a stick?"

"People," the Unspeakable snorted. "There is much more to this world than just people, Lassie. While your guest is pretty much human, the things he is friends with - not at all."

"The building is under Fidelius," Moody shrugged. "Nothing can visit uninvited."

The Unspeakable only laughed at that.

xxx

"But wait, I don't understand!" Hermione suddenly said.

Suguro looked at her. The girl insisted to join Harry and Ginny, even if she was lacking that specific connection to the world that gave them all the ability to see the beings he was slowly explaining to them. While hunger for knowledge he could understand perfectly well, there was something about the girl, that reminded him about Yukio Okumura. Or rather that one talk he had with him, while the young teach was drunk out of his ass and decided to explain why he really, really wanted to punch Ryuji in the jaw for asking way too many questions during the lessons.

Now Suguro understood.

"If you're supposed to fight all the demons, then why you are constantly telling us how to use them? That doesn't make any sense!"

"Well, they do tell you to fight fire with fire," Suguro smirked. "It really depends on the situation."

"How exactly?"

"There are people capable of dominating over certain group of spirits," he shrugged. "There are other people, which have something considered supernatural down their lines or groups of people that made a pact with certain spirits."

"A pact? But aren't these thing supposed to be evil?" She shook his head. "and what do you mean that people have something not natural in their lines? How's that even possible?"

"Said a girl capable of making stuff ignore gravity," Suguro snickered. "The world is never painted only in black and white. So, while there are many aggressive spirits and demons, they usually have some sort of a reason for their action."

"Wait…" Ginny blinked. "Spirits?"

"Wraiths? Ghosts?" the exorcist proposed, then grimaced. "I don't think you have the right word in English. But ghost is the closest thing, I guess."

"But the ghosts are unable to even touch tuff!" Hermione protested.

"What you call a ghost is not exactly the same thing I do," Suguro shrugged. "Think more of a godlike creature than an image of somebody dead."

"Godlike?"

"And the cultural differences strikes back yet again," he sighed. "Think more... pagan, for the lack of a better word. You know, a minor god of a river there, a tree spirit elsewhere."

"So... you ask for their help, and what?" Ginny blinked. "They just agree?"

"There's usually some sort of a payment," Suguro shrugged. "It's the easiest when you just have a pact, since you knows exactly what to expect. The other ways usually include some sort of a payment. Usually it's blood."

"That sound like black magic."

"Dunno about that," he just shrugged. "It's more like your signature, so the spirit could know who's he dealing with."

"...are you suggesting that these things can recognize DNA?"

"Something like that, I guess. More in a spiritual sense, but yeah. You can't falsify the blood."

"You guys do know that I haven't the slightest idea what are you talking about, right?" Ginny cut in, with a grimace on her face. "What is that Dee stuff?"

"Seriously?" Suguro blinked.

Hermione blushed, like she was embarrassed by being forced to explain. "The wizards aren't exactly following the sciences."

"For like two centuries!" the exorcist gasped. "What in the hell are you even do at that school of yours? You spend all the time waving your wand around or something?"

Harry and Ginny snorted and Hermione blinked with a conflicted expression on her face. Like she was unable to decide if she was baffled by the word play or horrified by the insinuation. Especially since the strike hit exactly, where it hurt.

"This was planned or just a slip of a tongue?" Harry, asked, chuckling. A smirk was the only answer he received and it only made him laugh harder.

"And where you were studying?" Ginny shook her head. "The bad pun academy?"

"It sometimes felt like that," Suguro rolled his eyes. "But somehow they managed to teach the normal stuff too."

"That sounds like a lot of work," Harry hummed. "There's a lot more stuff than in this book you gave me and the normal school on its own takes almost a whole day too..."

"Attending a cram school is a pretty normal thing in Japan," Ryuji explained. "All you really need to do is to learn how to manage your time."

To tell the truth it was much more complicated than that and sometimes he actually was forced to prioritize and choose what test he could let himself fail. But it was not something he was proud of, so he decided to not mention it.

Before Hermione decided to open her mouth once again and voice her opinion – probably catching Suguro on what he left unsaid too – Ron walked into the room with a disgusted grimace on his face and promptly closed the doors behind.

"Can I like hang out here for some time? I'll be quiet, promise, so you can do... whatever you do."

"Fred and George are making fun of you again?" Ginny raised an eyebrow.

"Nah, I think this time the adults actually found something nasty somewhere," he shuddered. "You wouldn't believe how it stinks out there right now!"

"Or your brothers are testing another weird joke-item of theirs," Hermione groaned and walked towards the doors, brave enough to check the things on her own. "Honestly, if they invented something worse than the dung bombs, then I-"

She never finished the sentence. Instead, she felt into a coughing fit. Ron was right, the smell outside the room seemed to be almost impossible to stand. The air seemed to be filled with sickly sweet stench that seemed to stick to her skin, inside of her nose and throat as soon as she took her first breath.

"W-what is that?!" she managed to groan between coughs. "It smells like..."

"Rotting corpse?" the exorcist proposed, suddenly standing right next to her.

Hermione jumped, completely startled. When he even managed to get that close?!

"Dude, what's up with you?!" Ron protested. "Saying stuff like that... how would you even know how a rotting corpse smells like?!"

"I've meet my share, alright," Suguro grimaced. "That's not important now. I think you guys might have accidentally broke into a nest of something nasty from my side of things."

"Even if these things you talks about are real," Hermione said, wiping her face. Because of the stench and the coughing her eyes were watering and it was difficult to see clear through tears. "How could they just show up here like that?"

"This building was abandoned for quite some time, wasn't it?" Suguro tilted his head. "During that time, whatever barriers have been set around the property weakened and things could get inside through tears in them."

"Huh," Ron blinked. "I think mom mentioned something about recreating the wards, now you've mentioned it... You sure you're not a Squib or something?"

"I'm definitely not a cephalopod."

"A what now?" Ron blinked in confusion.

"Not important," Suguro shook his head. "I don't like t."

"Do you know what exactly is going on?" Harry asked.

"It's an abandoned building with a dark aura on its own," Suguro shook his head. "This is like a hot spot all on its own, magic or not. At least the smells narrows it somehow..."

"To nothing pleasant, I bet," Ginny winkled her nose. Then a realization must have hit her, since she suddenly paled. "My mom... others are somewhere and they can't even see...!"

"That's what's worrying me," Suguro nodded.

"But you don't even have your stuff and in the book," Ginny frowned. "So many charms and talismans..."

"I'm good at improvising," Suguro cut in. "I think the kitchen would be a good place to go."

Ron looked at him, like the exorcist has gone mad in the past seconds. "That's the weirdest time for dinner ever!"

"I just need salt," Ryuji rolled his eyes. "The more the better. Chalk would be great too, but salt is easier to get and it's easier to use..."

"Okay," Harry nodded. "We can do that. Me and Ginny can help look around for... whatever it is."

It was ridiculous, Hermione thought. Probably just another dumb trick of the twins that somehow got awry - it wouldn't be the first time - and it was stupid to treat it so seriously. But they were going and for whatever reason, she didn't want to be left alone. All these scary stories were getting on her nerves.

So Hermione just followed the group into a dark corridor.

The Grimmaur Place never seemed to be more dark than now. The wooden boards were creaking loudly under every step they made and the awful smell was getting even stronger. But besides that, it looked exactly like it always did. Nothings strange was going on at all. Up until they found a strange scratching marks, first on the floor, then travelling up the wall all the way to the ceiling, where a trail of black stains began.

It was an old building. It had every right to have stains on its ceiling. Hermione vaguely remembered Sirius moaning about how the ceiling was leaking the first day he started living here. Old building were usually infested with things like a fungus too, these could be dark... but she really doubted, that the infected spots could ever appear in such regular way, that almost looked like a hand. Not a human one, the fingers seemed to be way too long and bend in a strange way.

"Well, fuck me," Suguro murmured.

"Excuse me?!" she gasped, startled by his voice so suddenly filling the air and slightly scandalized at his language.

"Now I know what we're dealing with," he sighed. "And I'm not happy about that."

"Then guess we should hurry?"

"Yeah," he nodded, the frown on his face deepening. "Whatever you do, don't touch the black fluid."

"who would want to do that?" Ron groaned. "This stuff stinks like... I have no idea, but this is the most awful thing ever!"

"It's poisonous and can go through your skin perfectly well," Suguro explained quickly. "Ghouls tend to leave it all over the place."

"Ghouls?" Ron blinked. "We have a ghoul in the attic, he's not acting like that at all! He doesn't even stinks that much!"

Suguro looked at him for a short moment, then shook his head.

"Later," he said out loud. "Right now I really want to set up a safe place."

All the way to the kitchen, down the narrow corridor and then through a staircase, nothing happened. For a moment Hermione was sure she could hear a scratching noises of some sort, but she grit her teeth and ignored it.

She breathed out with relief when they finally managed to reach the kitchen, surprised how tense she was through the whole way.

"Salt should be..." Ron murmured. "Darn, why can't we just use magic to summon things? It's totally unfair!"

"Because it makes you lazy," the exorcist responded immediately, opening the nearest cupboard.

"Got it!" Harry said, immediately finding his way in the kitchen. Cooking for the Dursleys right now seemed to be his most useful ability.

"There's also a bag of flour too, you said once that the flour can work against bad things, right?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Suguro nodded. "Do you have any idea who else is in the building right now?"

"Um..." Ginny bit her lip. "Sirius. My mom too and the twins... But I'm pretty sure everybody else is out right now, either at work or doing something we're not supposed to know about."

"That complicates things a little," Suguro grimaced. "Where's the usual spot people tend to arrive at?"

"By the stairs, nearby the entrance, I think," Hermione answered. "It's pretty much the same place they arrived with you, since it's spacious and the risk on bumping at something that already there is smaller..."

"That will do," he nodded. "And seeing an entrance is a good thing too, some people actually still use the doors like normal human beings."

"Touché," Harry smirked. "So, what exactly we're supposed to do when we get there?"

"I want you and Ginny to keep an eye the things around, getting jumped would be stupid. You two can made a salt ring on the floor. It doesn't need to be really round, just make sure there are no gaps. There's enough salt to make it quite wide..."

"I found a salt shaker," Ginny mumbled. "It's not much, but it's full. So if something happens we can have an emergency source."

"Good thinking."

"but how exactly a bunch of cooking stuff is supposed to keep ghouls away?" Ron blinked in confusion. "That's just... salt! Anybody could cross a ring of it without a problem!"

"Because you're human," Suguro sighed. "Salt is supposed to keep away ah... unclean beings. What I call a ghoul is actually a demon capable of taking over dead bodies. It's pretty much using whatever is on hand and the results might be rather disturbing."

"And they are attacking people why exactly? If they are demons or spirits or whatever... do they even feel things like hunger?"

"It's more like hunting down new parts for their bodies," Suguro sighed. "Something like that. You don't really need to know all the technicals, do you?"

"Not really," Ron agreed, turning slightly greenish on the face. "I'm totally fine with not knowing at all."

It was not long until he saw it.

They found both Molly and Sirius in the same room. It was the place where people usually apparted in, empty and wide, safe for the sofa far by the wall on the opposite side.

A broken bottle was lying on the floor, but the odor of the alcohol wasn't even close to blocking the heavy, unpleasant smell of the rotting meat.

"What the-!" Ron gasped, because Harry suddenly grabbed both him and Hermione, forcing them to stop, while the exorcist visibly tensed.

"Mom, Sirius!" Ginny shouted, while Suguro started muttering something under his breath. "Get out of there! It's not safe!"

"Ring!" Harry gasped and then tore the salt package. It started seeping down immediately. Harry moved around, creating uneven but wide ring around them and the carpet on the floor.

Ron wanted to ask what in the world was going on. Then he saw it too; a thin, human-like shape, blurry and unpleasant to look at, like his eyes were refusing to accept that the thing was there.

It wasn't only standing, it was moving towards his mom too, quick and unnatural, still shifting between being there and disappearing, just to reappear in other place, still getting close and closer.

A single crystal salt shaker hit the monster right in the head with enough force to shatter. The tiny pieces of class scattered around, shining in the dim light like thousands of little stars. The cloud of salt covered the monster's head and chest and with a loud hiss burned right into its skin.

"Get away from my mom!" she could hear Ginny's voice.

The monster screamed in high-pitched, inhuman voice, all of its hand reached towards the place where the face was located.

"Mom!" Ron shouted, his voice somehow travelling over the unholy noise. "Here, quickly! Cross the ring on the floor!"

Molly looked around, moving away from the creature which was still whirling in spasm of pain, but unable to look away from the strange, pale joints that bended in all the unnatural ways with an almost impossible fluidity.

"What..." she gasped. "What is–?"

"Hurry!" Harry screamed. "Sirius, please!"

The man finally regained his senses and looked around with eyes wide open. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled forwards, trying to reach the safe zone.

Meanwhile, Suguro stepped outside the ring and started to speak in odd language, his eyes locked on the creature. He was raising and then lowering his voice in a irregular, impossible to ignore, way.

The beast tilted it's head towards him, like it was listening, but then it just flickered and disappeared all together.

"Wha-?" Sirius gasped.

"It's still here!" Ginny cried. "Keep going!"

"How do you know that?!"

"Just go!"

The exorcist was still chanting something and the kids looked just scared, so Sirius and Molly obeyed and moved forward, unsure of what was going on. Then something dropped on the floor right behind them with a heavy thud. Sirius still couldn't see it, but he sure as hell could smell it. He pulled Molly just in time. The creature suddenly materialized right where the woman was standing a second ago. It turned it's blind head right towards them, the sews on the face breaking apart. It's mouth opened wide, way too wide to be humanly possible, uncovering a row of uneven, sharp teeth.

"Crap!" Sirius gasped, pushing Molly further to the side. They both had their wands drawn, but the beast was quick and just in front of them. There was no time to cast a spell.

Suddenly, the monster turned around, completely losing interest in them.

"what the...?" Sirius blinked. He expected to be attacked at any moment, not to stare at the creature's back.

Suguro just smirked and chanted even louder, provoking the monster even further. It threw itself in his direction, beating the distance in just a few jumps.

"Look out!" Molly shouted, feeling the dread growing inside of her. If that thing reaches him...!

The smile on Suguro's mouth merely grew wider, continuing the chant.

He was just standing there, with his back straight, staring right at the monstrosity charging at him, a strangely looking rosary dangling from his fingers.

"Suguro!" she screamed in dread.

Just as the ghoul made his final jump, launching an attack that definitely should reach its goal, the exorcist finished chanting, still standing in one place, completely unmoving.

The monster, so real a mere second ago, suddenly turn into ashes. The dust, still carried by the movement, flew harmlessly by Suguro, passing him completely.

Only after a second or two passed, he lowered his hands, the rosary still hanging in between his fingers.

"Fucking finally," he grunted, then eyed Molly and Sirius. "You two go to the ring already!"

"It's..." Ginny blinked. "It's not over?"

"Doubt that," Suguro shook his head. "There were sews on the thing, but it looked like a bunch of pieces were missing."

"It was charging at you and you paid attention to stuff like that?" Hermione gasped. It was probably the most terrifying thing she ever saw, so much more scary than the Boggart she failed to beat during her third year exams or even creatures Hagrid was constantly bringing to their lessons.

"It took awhile, I went almost through a half of the book. Again." he groaned, then looked at Sirius. "You, magick me some chalk, now I know exactly what they were so I can draw a few rings to make this place actually secure."

Sirius just did what he was told to do without a single world, looking just like Hermione felt.

Suguro immediately started to working on some complicated pattern she couldn't even hope to understand, long hours she spend bend over Ancient Runes and Arithmancy books completely useless.

"But wait!" Ron suddenly blinked. "If there really is something still lurking around then...!"

"The boys!" Molly realized almost in the same moment. "They might be in danger!"

Then, before Suguro – or anyone else – managed to react in any way, she crossed the line of salt and ran towards the stairs.

"Stop, you dumb woman! You want to get yourself killed?!"

The witch never answered, too occupied by climbing up the stairs as fast as possible, jumping over two and three at a time.

The exorcist cursed in his own language and his eyes dashed between the receding figure of the woman and the group standing in the middle of the room. Then he cursed again, already knowing what was the right thing to do and not liking it at all.

He had to ensure that the bigger group was safe before doing anything else, no matter how eager that dumb woman was to get herself killed. So he knelt down once more, trying to finish the proper barrier as soon as possible.

"Why aren't you doing anything?" Ginny protested. "They could... they could be! And mom!"

"Do you really think I wouldn't like to do something?!"Suguro growled, not stopping his work for even a moment. "But I can't just run off after somebody who decided to be an idiot!"

"How dare–!"

"And what if you're attacked while I'm away?!" he cut in before Ron even manage to finish his sentence. "How do you think your mother would fell, returning to a pile of dead bodies, all bloody and torn to pieces?!"

He took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," he continued in a much calmer manner. "But I really can't just follow her and hope for the best."

"I can help," Sirius suddenly said. " Harry and Ginny are able to see them, right?"

"That doesn't explain how you might be helpful," Suguro pinched the bridge of his nose. "Or how that is even going to make everybody go through it alive."

"I'm good at doing portkeys," Sirius said with a wide grin. Then he remembered that the exorcist was a muggle. "These are like… remember the feeling when we snatched you? I make items that can do that, they are password–locked."

"Are you sure that portkeys are going to work here?" Hermione asked with a frown. "I mean, this place is protected by so many wards…"

"It's fine, just the last week I turned a doorknob into one. Portkeyed Snivellus right into the bathtub! Boy, wasn't he pissed!" Sirius giggled. "Though that could be because the water turned cold when he finally decided to leave…"

The exorcist visibly relaxed. "Thank you."

"For dealing with that guy personal hygiene issues? Always!"

"For giving me a chance to do something."

"Wait, you want to go there alone?!" Harry gasped. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"That's the reason I'm going alone," Suguro shrugged slightly. "Look, it's going to be fine, I'm going to find the lost sheeps, exorcist some shit to Hell... it's going to be fine."

"Wait, how exactly are you even planning on finding Molly?"

"I'll manage?"

"I can help you with that," Sirius said. "Maybe I can't see these...whatever that was until it's trying to eat my face, but I can damn well sniff people out."

Suguro blinked, obviously not understanding where that even came from.

"I can turn into a dog," Sirius explained after the silence started to feel awkward. "You remember, right? I tried to eat your face not so long ago."

"Oh," Suguro blinked. "That's actually a good thing. I guess."

Sirius looked around, considering which item would work best as a portkey. The place they were currently in was sadly bare and he definitely had no time at all to run around, looking for knick–knacks. Then he looked down and a wide smile bloomed on his lips.

There was a very old, ridiculously pricey carpet which Mrs. Weasley found nice enough to keep around, even if it was in the usual doom–and–gloom style of the Black household. It wasn't too big, barely large enough for all the kids to fit onto.

"Okay," he said. "If something decide to get too near, all you need to do is to scream "vulture" out loud and you will be snatched to the Longbottom's manor. I don't think Augusta would mind and you always can tell her that she can keep that rag."

Few movements of the wand and magic came to life, filling the item of choose with ease, like Sirius wasn't rusty at all. If anything, it felt eager to please, like it was waiting for the moment to do something as much as the caster.

Immediately after he was done, Sirius changed his form and then waggled his tail impatiently.

Suguro merely raised eyebrows.

"Okay then," he said. "Just don't run. You can't see the ghouls or anything else from my side of things. Rushing in is just a stupid thing to do in that kind of situation."

Sirius barked almost dancing in once place.

"Huh, you can't talk like that?" Suguro pulled out his rosary once again, holding it like some sort of a weapon. "'S okay. Just follow the trail. I think... she would definitely know, where her kids are usually hanging out, right?"

Sirius barked once again. Even if they would find just Molly alone, she was another wand user and this would definitely come in handy if they bump into another one of these monsters. They were completely visible when they were attacking, after all.

Oddly enough, Sirius found out that he couldn't remember clearly, how the creature even looked like, his mind only capable of summoning an unfocused image of white shape with long, thin joints bending in way to many places and the unbelievable stench of rotten meat filling the air, making him want to gag.

He carefully sniffed, wishing the memories again, concentrating on finding the smell of one Molly Weasley.

Soon, he was climbing up the stairs and the young exorcist was following him with ease, his wary, sharp eyes travelling along the corridors, looking for the creatures only he was capable to see.

The corridors seemed to be longer than even before, just going on and on, like they hadn't an end at all. If not for the monochromatic vision he had as a dog, Sirius would swear that he somehow managed to travel in time, to the one of these moments he was walking through these corridors as a small kid, as slowly as possible, trying to delay as long as possible before facing his parents.

"You okay?" the exorcist suddenly asked, looking at him strangely.

Has he whined at some point? Sirius shook his head. This place really was messing with his head. Sometimes he felt almost like he never left at all.

But this wasn't the time for something like that. He needed to stick to reality for a little more. Molly... he really should concentrate on her scent. It was pretty easy, after all. So different than damp smell of dust and decay.

Sirius' nose led them up the stairs and then to the felt, heading towards the library, not far from the room where Suguro spend most of his days here.

That's about right, Sirius though, as he was getting closer. The library was one of the forbidden places because of all books that contained black magic, but were magically bind to the shelves, always returning to their place, no matter what. Were fireproof too, Sirius learned that when he was still living with his parents. The twins were just like him. If something was not allowed, they definitely were trying their hardest to get it. Or inside of it. Molly knew her kids too, so the library was definitely one of the first places in the whole building she would head towards.

Then there was bright flash of light coming straight from under the doors, followed by a cracking noise.

There was no need to ask any questions or even to exchange glances.

Sirius jumped at the doors, pushing the two heavy wings with the weight of his own body. The exorcist followed just after him, his hands ready to once again create the complicated net of a shield.

The room was as dim as always and the quick flashes of spells were like lightning in the storm that came in the middle of the night - bright and blinding, filling everything with sharp shadows.

"Crap!" Suguro groaned. The caster was Molly, who was sending one flashy blast of light after another, only pushing an approaching ghoul back for a short moment. The stubborn creature just keep coming back, again and again.

But it wasn't alone and she had no way of telling. The two others were slowly creeping towards her, one slowly crossing the distance on the ceiling in spiderlike fashion. The other one was sitting on the top of one of the bookshelves, waiting for the right moment.

Molly wasn't alone, too. There was another person behind her, kneeling on the ground, bending over something lying on the floor.

Sirius was unable to see the two invisible ghouls, but his nose was more than enough to give him at least vague idea what was inside the room. His ears as a dog were much more sensitive, too. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing, because with every movement, these things were pushing the air our of their lungs with a soft, creepy noise.

"Get them out of here!" the exorcist ordered.

Easy for you to say, Sirius though, jumping towards the small group of wizards.

"Sirius...!" George gasped, recognizing him immediately. "You need to-!"

"Are you okay?" he asked, returning to his human form.

"I-! Yeah. But Fred..."

"'M fine...!" the figure on the floor - the second twin - wheezed through his teeth. He was curled up and was holding his left arm.

When Sirius reached over to check on him, the boy flinched away.

"No!" he gasped. "That wound... if you touch it, you're going to get burnt!"

Sirius understood only after Fred opened his right hand. The inside of his palm was covered in dark stains, that looked almost like ink. Almost. The skin was reddened around the dark spots and even from his position Sirius could feel that the boy was burning up.

"It's going to make you sick," George explained, his voice thick with worry. "And really, really fast, too. We need to get him out of here...!"

Sirius nodded, quickly unbuttoning his shirt. For the first time in his life he was grateful for being forced to wear such things even during the summer. It was easy to cover the damaged skin, wrapping the shirt around the wounds.

"Suguro...?" he turned around. The exorcist seemed to be just fine. But it felt just wrong, to leave him alone. So he made his decision pretty easily.

"George, you and your mother, you help him up and get out of here."

"But...!" he protested.

"Go downstairs, the others are safe behind a ring of salt. Don't ask, just go there."

For a short moment, Molly looked at him, too. She was pale and instead of arguing, she just nodded.

"Hey, asshole!" the exorcist screamed. "I'm right here! Come and get me!"

Sirius turned around and started to cast, shooting blindly, trying to spread his spells as much as possible around Suguro.

Meanwhile Molly and George, painfully slowly, started heading towards the doorway.

Suguro was glad, that the dog-wizard decided to stay, even if he would preferred for him to leave with the rest. There was no way of telling if outside was safe. While the wizards were not completely helpless, they still stood no chance if surprised.

He stepped away, letting one of the ghouls pass him by, then ducked behind a bookshelf to avoid another attack. Then he had to duck and move away once more, then again and again, while reciting bits and pieces of the verses, trying to find the right one. With all that dodging it was difficult but still doable and he lucked out right in the same moment when Sirius managed to hit another one with a whole bookshelf. The sudden racket of heavy piece of furniture hitting the floor startled Suguro. His eyes automatically locked on where the noise came from and that was a mistake.

The third ghoul rammed into him from the left, with enough force to push him on the ground. He hit the floor hard.

Suguro gasped, suddenly out of the breath. He barely manage to keep the beast from biting into his shoulder, holding its mass away just with one arm.

Suguro started reciting, focusing his attention on keeping the rhythm of the words steady, because any mistake was unacceptable at this point. He didn't stop even when the doorway opened, both wings hitting the walls with a thud. He almost lost his concentration when a sudden blast of blinding red light pushed the ghoul out of him. Almost.

The beast didn't hit the ground, turning into dust in the mid-air.

"...and you seemed to got it," Alastor commented, looking at the vanishing ashes.

"One more," Suguro said simply, standing back up.

Moody nodded, because that was all the information he needed. The bookcase on the floor moved with a creaking noise. Dusty old volume slipped from one of the shelves, quickly followed by few others. They never hit the floor; both of the wizards casted a powerful suspension spells over the whole area, freezing everything in place.

Moment later it was over.

"How did you found us?" Sirius asked.

"There's quite a group of people downstairs, Black," the ex–auror snickered.

"We should go there," the exorcist said, before Sirius decided to open his mouth and ask more questions. "I don't think we can waste more time."

The wounded twin looked much worse than a few moments before, Sirius noted, when they joined the group downstairs.

He was lying on the carpet - the one Sirius himself turned into a Portkey - and didn't seem to be even conscious anymore. His skin was pale safe for his reddened face and dark rings under his eyes.

Molly was kneeling next to him, running her fingers through the boy's hair, trying to comfort him. She looked almost as bad as the kid. The other twin was no better. He was sitting with the rest of the kids, all of them bended over a book, but his eyes were constantly wandering towards his brother.

"Suguro!" Harry gasped, noticing the exorcist and the two wizards. "We're trying to-"

"I know," he said, walking towards the wounded boy. The exorcist knelt by the boy and moved the shirt away.

"It's bad, isn't it?" Mrs. Weasley noticed his grimace.

"It's not good," he nodded.

"We should take him to the hospital," Moody said. "I can-"

"And you really think you people can find a way to deal with it? Before the kid will kick it?" the exorcist snickered.

"Do you?"

"I know enough for the First-Aid. But I'm going to need things."

"Kreacher!" Sirius barked.

The old House Elf showed up with a loud crack, muttering his usual things about blood traitors and dishonor.

"You are going to bring anything that guy wants. And you're going to do it as soon as possible." Sirius ordered. Then furrowed his brow and added one more thing. "And none of the items should be cursed or charmed in any way."

The Elf huffed angrily. "Why would Kreacher serve a dirty, stupid Muggle?"

"You either do this, or I'm going to set you on fire," Suguro said in a matter of fact voice.

Kreacher looked at him. He was an old House Elf, and he served a Dark family for a long, long time. If there was something he knew really well, it was how to recognize a threat.

"Kreacher listens."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** So many reviews and favs! Thank you! Having your attention is making me so very happy^^  
When I started writing this story, I fully expected to be done with the whole kidnapping issue in chapter 3. Then in chapter 5. You can see now, how good I'm at predicting stuff, even while having a detailed plan of action right in front of my face. Literally. 

**Chapter 8**  
**A Doors To Another World**

Kreacher did what he was told to do and then disappeared again, leaving every wizard and witch who paid attention to the House–Elf dumb folded. Especially Sirius, who still was looking suspiciously between Suguro and the stairs that led upstairs, where the nest of the annoying creature was located.

The exorcist himself was kneeling in front of the wounded boy, working quickly and efficiently, like he had done that before and definitely not only once.

"Wouldn't guess that herbal mesh would heal anything but slight burns," Moody murmured, eyeing curiously the process, while his magical eye was wandering all around the place, like it was looking for new enemies.

"It's not healing," Suguro shook his head. "It's only stopping the process, so he won't die in the next few hours."

"What are you saying?" Mrs. Weasley gasped.

"He needs to go to a hospital," The exorcist said slowly. "One with people that knows exactly what to do."

"We can't just wander around London with a kid in his state!" Sirius protested.

"Maybe St. Mungo…" Hermione murmured under her breath, eyeing the book. "If we give them the information about these monsters, then maybe…"

"And you really want to bet on maybe?" Suguro snorted, raising one hand and reached towards his neck and then took off the golden chain that he was always wearing. There was a small key hanging on the end of it. "Besides, I have a perfect way to transport him safely and instantly where he will get all the help he needs."

"Explain!" Mrs. Weasley demanded.

"This," Suguro said with a short not. "Is the Emergency Key. When you turn it in the lock of any doors, the doorway leads to the TCO hospital instead of a next room."

"Wait, what?" Sirius gasped. "Are you telling me… That you could like waltz out of here at any given moment?!"

"Yeah," the exorcist just shrugged. "But I was curious, so I decided to stay a bit and observe. Anyhow, there are limits on the Key. No more than three can go through at once and between each travel you have to wait for a few hours."

"In other words," Moody snickered. "Whoever go there is on his own, with a wounded kid no less. You think we're stupid?"

"I think you care for the kid enough to take a risk and help him before it's too late," Suguro said and handed the Key to Mrs. Weasley. It was her son, after all, so the decision also should be hers.

"I…" she swallowed. "I'm going to do it."

"That's risky!"

"I don't have other choice!" she groaned.

Molly was terrified. Her son was still unconscious and still feverish. Her hands were shaking so much, that she dropped the key she was trying to use. She stared at it, shining at the floor innocently, and trying not to start crying. She needed to be strong.

Molly took deep breath and then picked up the key. She was going to save her son.

When she opened the doors, complete darkness welcomed her, instead of a room that usually was at the other side. She gasped, staring in the black void, but it didn't brightened a tiniest bit.

"Don't worry," Suguro said. "I promise, when you walk through this door, you will find help for him. Trust me."

She wanted to. Mad-Eye Moody wouldn't shut up about how dangerous this young man could be and she saw with her very own eyes that he had no respect for people like Dumbledore at all. He dared to bark even at her, spitting out cursewords with a cynical smile.

But then he risked his life to fight these monsters and gave up his only way out. This couldn't be a trap, right? He wasn't that sort of man, to just trick her when she was at her lowest, just to take some sort of low revenge upon them?

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Suguro groaned, noticing her hesistation. "What kind of a person do you think I am, woman?!"

"Right," Molly chuckled, unsure if it was the nerves, or something else. She casted a levitating spell on her son, carefully floating his body over the ground.

It was just like Suguro said, the moment she stepped into the darkness, was the same moment she stepped into completely foreign place. It was very, very bright, the light coming from strange, flat lamps on the white ceiling, to the point Molly was blinded for the moment.

The room smelled strongly on antiseptics and fresh herbs, an odd mix of muggle and magical hospital. There was a row of several identical doors on the wall behind her, all of them placed too close to each other to led to different rooms. There were people around too, a lot of them. She could hear a chair dropping to the floor with a loud noise and a lot of voices. She definitely wasn't an expected guest.

"Please, we need help!" Molly called.

It really wasn't long until she received it. Somebody kneeled down by Fred, somebody else asked her about how much time passed from the attack and what caused it. Molly couldn't quite recall the conversation, everything was blurred. But after a short moment, she was left in the corridor, while these people put her son onto a mobile bed and took him away.

One of the people who asked all the questions was still around; a short woman with broad shoulders and dark skin. She had a nice, comforting voice, even if her accent was more than just odd and probably the most intense stare Molly had ever seen. Maybe because her brown eyes were so big and round or maybe the secret was in the eyebrows, wide and dark as coal.

"Don't worry miss, out medics knows what they are doing," the woman wrapped arm around her and led her to some other room and then towards one of the chairs. "But I really need to ask you, who gave you the key? And where he or she is?"

"He's ah–" Molly started, but the Fidelius Charm didn't let her talk about the Grimmauld Place. "He's safe. Really."

The woman sighed and slowly walked around the wooden table, so she could sit in a chair on the opposite side.

"Let's start from the beginning," she said, reaching of the tea service that stood on the wooden surface and filling two cups out of four on the plastic tray. "My name is Marie Chavez and, as you probably know already, I'm an exorcist."

Molly slowly nodded, staring at her tea. She was literally out of her world and just terrified. About Fred, about this odd, alien world of Muggles and of Muggles themselves.  
She introduced herself, suddenly finding out it was hard to talk when her voice was shaking so much, then talked about Suguro and the monster attack.

Marie was only asking questions from time to time, otherwise patiently waiting for her to finish the sentence. Molly was glad, because it was easier to finish the story this way.

"There is a lot of things you didn't tell me," the exorcist pointed out, after Molly was done.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But I really can't do that."

"Whatever," Marie shrugged with a heavy sigh. "We already contacted a man Suguro was working with, he said he would like to talk to you. He's going to show up shortly, in the meanwhile… well, if you need something, just ask."

xxx

"Okay, that was weird," Sirius said after a short moment.

They all watched Molly and Fred disappear in the doorway that had no right to even exist in the first place, not to mention actually work.

"That didn't look like a muggle technology," Moody pointed out with a frown. "I have no idea what it was."

Or what he saw, when his magical eye set on the dark passage. He didn't knew words to describe what was on the other side. All he could get out of this was the strong impression that the reality was bend and twisted beyond recognition.

"Just a way to get around," Suguro just shrugged, like it wasn't anything important.

"I definitely was not anything muggle-made!" Hermione shook her head. "It was more similar to the Portkeys than anything else..."

"I don't know how these works either," Suguro shrugged. "I just use them."

"That sound rather stupid..." Hermione responded immediately. "I mean, if you don't how something works, then if it will get broken or something you will have no way of knowing how to repair it, or anything!"

"Fair point," the exorcist nodded. "But I know the creator."

"Oh," she blinked. "then it's fine, I guess..."

Moody smirked, deciding it was as good moment to change the topic of the conversation as any. "Weren't you planning to tell us who are you any time soon?"

"You really want to talk about this now?" Suguro groaned. It was hard to not notice the annoyance in his voice.

Alastor decided to play along for the moment. There were things he needed answers for, but safety was always a much more pressing issue, especially since one of the kids already got hurt. Besides, it would be easier to talk with the exorcist alone. "You think there is still something out there?"

"Are you sure there isn't?" Ryuji challenged him. As expected. The exorcist was surprisingly easy to manipulate once one knew which buttons to push.

"Fine," Moody nodded, unable to keep the smirk from reaching his face. "I think this can wait until we make sure that it is safe."

"We?"

"You said it yourself, kid," Moody just shrugged. "You guys don't work alone, do you?"

"And you are planning on dealing with ghouls how exactly?"

"Back at ya," Moody smirked. "What if you bump into something purely magical? It's not like you can pick up a wand and magic your way out of the trouble..."

Instead of finishing the sentence, Alastor let the exorcist do the math on his own. While he sadly was unable to see the ghouls – or whatever these things were – until they were attacking, the kid was still just a Muggle. Unable to see all the magical beings that were still creeping among the shadows of the old mansion. Going out without any sort of a back–up would be a plain stupid thing to do.

"You are right," Suguro said, because he was anything but stupid. "Second set of eyes would be an useful asset."

Moody chuckled darkly and moved forward, not even looking back to check if he was followed. He knew he was. Soon enough, they were standing on the top floor of the building arm by arm, eyeing suspiciously the narrow staircase leading to the attic.

"I guess we should start from the very top," the exorcist said with a grimace on his face. "Not almost the top and then act like we did our job correctly."

"You seem to not like attics very much," Moody noted.

"It's not as bad as old Japanese mansions, but bad enough," he said, like it was explaining everything.

Alastor chuckled in response. "What, now you're a chicken?"

"I really want to kick you, old man!"

He didn't, since they actually had a job to do and the sooner they deal with it, the better. So Moody waved his wands and the doors to the attic opened with a small thud.

"It doesn't look like there is something in there," he said. "Though apparently my all-seeing eye is not able to see everything."

"All-seeing?"

"Magic."

The attic, luckily was indeed just as empty as it looked in the ex-auror eyes. So they started to check the actual rooms. Pretty quickly, which was surprising. Alastor hadn't expected the exorcist to be able to cooperate with him so easily, or maybe he didn't suspect himself of being able to work that well with a muggle brat.

To tell the truth, the kid was better than Tonks. He wasn't stumbling over stuff every now and then, was not wasting time over asking unnecessary questions and when he was talking it actually provided information about what they were facing and how to deal with it.

"Why are looking at me like that?" Suguro asked, noticing the sudden attention.

"You are used to it, don't you?"

He immediately understood. "Well, I am an exorcist for quite awhile," Suguro said like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"You're what, twenty?"

"Twenty one," the exorcist immediately corrected in that adorable, bratty manner.

"And you're telling me that you have a quite decent experience."

Suguro rolled his eyes. "Five years. And yes, I'm aware of the fact that it is early. Usually people spend three years on learning this stuff. I'm just stubborn."

"Hard to not notice that," Moody snickered.

They continued on, finding much more magical creatures that Alastor expected to.

"I think I'm going to discretely murder that House Elf!" The auror growled after they bumped into a boggart. At least the exorcist was too smart to be afraid of things that simply could kill both of them without letting Alastor to see them.

"How is that his fault?"

"Every day kids, the village idiot and his friend are cleaning this place up, banishing all that shit!" Alastor was perfectly aware of the fact he was ranting. "Then that blasted piece of crap bring home everything he is able to find!"

"Well," Suguro blinked. "That's a new angle on hoarding, I guess."

moody grit his teeth. He probably could deal with that nasty thing after they were done. Sometime later he probably would ask about the boggart. Not many people were able to hold an actual conversation with their worst fear.

"You kid alright?"

"Yeah," he coughed quietly. "Give me an hour or two and I'm going to be peachy."

"I'm more interested in the present."

"Well, have a ghoul breathe right into your face and let's see how you will feel," he groaned.

"Woah, snappish!"

"Sorry," Suguro pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's just... people aren't supposed to get too close to these things. "

"Yet you don't seem to be too overwhelmed," Moody noted. To tell the truth, besides that coughing the exorcist was acting like it was just another Thursday. He was curious if it all was just an act. Alastor actually hoped for it to be the case.

"I know a guy who was able to summon these things as his familiars," Suguro said, his voice still neutral on the border with bored. "It's not the first time for me to fight them either. I know where to stop, if you're wondering about that."

Moody was glad about that. If there was something he hated more than Death Eaters and dumb wizards that decided to go dark a few steps to many, it was suicidal brat on a mission.

Now, however the old Auror was curious. Since the kid was actually talking for once about his world, it would be a shame to not use the opportunity. "What was the first time like?"

"A ghoul grabbed my face and I was really surprised that I was still alive," the exorcist actually chuckled. "It was scary as hell, but it was also the first time I've really tested if I can do this sort of stuff."

"That sound like you could die."

"I was sure as hell that I'm going to. The whole place was filled with professionals hiding in every possible corner, ready to interfere if things go too far, but I didn't know that at the time."

Alastor hummed in answer, toying with the idea in his mind. He liked it. It sounded like something that actually could teach trainees something useful instead of standing still and shouting their lungs out about arresting people. Especially now, with a new war on the horizon. However, the Ministry would instantly interfere if he tried to mess with the training program. Nobody needed these bastards to get any more suspicious than they already were. At least Tonks was learning something and befriended a handful of younger trainees, so she could show them a few tricks.

It didn't took all that much time for them to move down to the first floor. It was supposed to be much safer here, so naturally when they opened the doors to the studio of late Lord Black a ghoul launched itself at them.

They both moved away, Suguro to the left while Moody stepped back to the right. The beast landed right in between them with heavy thud, three deformed heads moving in unnatural way to look around.

Moody instantly barked a paralyzing spell, hoping to hit the target before the ghoul disappear. The spell hit, but not all of the creature stiffened. A big piece just torn itself off with a nauseating creak of breaking stitches, skin and meat. The room instantly was filled with horrifying smell.

"Again!" Suguro ordered. His shout caused the ghoul to turn the attention towards the exorcist. It's body - the pair still able to move freely - flickered and vanished.

"I can't see it!" Moody warned him. "Watch out for the lights!"

Suguro jumped out of the way of something, his hands already in move.

Moody waited. It would be stupid to just shot blindly and risk hitting the one person in the room that actually was able to see the enemy. Only a split second and that odd shield the exorcist was using blossomed to life, thin pale lines shining in the air, in just the right moment to protect him from–

"Pertificus Totalus!" Moody shouted as fast as possible and then send another curse and another, pointing at the space right over the shield. One of them hit the target – the air around it bend in strange way, like the reality itself couldn't decide if the beast was supposed to became visible or not – and another one followed, right in the middle of that awful tearing noise.

While the spell keep the creature from moving, turning it into the most creepy sculpture Moody ever saw, the laws of physics were still working. Which was bad, especially for the carpet the ghoul was standing on. Black, thick fluid hit the floor with unpleasant splattering noise, filling the air with the stench Alastor would never be able to forget.

Suguro somehow was still capable of speech. Alastor has no way of knowing what exactly the exorcist was saying since he was using Japanese, but the ex-Auror was too occupied with not vomiting to really care.

Soon enough the ghoul - ghouls? - vanished, but the awful stench was still filling the room, not to mention the black puddle on the carpet.

Moody pointed wand at it and cast one vanishing spell after another, trying to get rid of as much of it as it was possible, while the exorcist jumped towards the windows.

Feeling jealous, Alastor cursed under his breath - bad idea, since talking made him suck more of the stinking air in - and switched to cutting curses. After the ancient carped was in shreds, he just levitated it into the chimney and with great satisfaction cast the igniting curse.

"That's better," he gasped, finally sticking his head outside and breathing in the sweet, fresh air.

"Now we know what was the bad idea."

"Well, he was standing still," Alastor pointed out. "After three spells, but that's better than it chewing out somebody's head."

"I don't like the smell."

"Surprise, surprise," Moody snickered. "You could've just set him on fire."

"Bad idea, unless you're really good with a fire-thrower."

"I'm pretty sure you could..." Alastor started. He was pretty sure he remembered Harry talking something about setting evil spirits on fire and memory wasn't something that failed him very often.

"To do that I need to bleed a little," Suguro grimaced. "Bleeding around a ghoul is one hell of a bad idea."

The Auror wanted to ask why, but it clicked inside his mind before he even opened his mouth. The smelly substance was toxic and he saw not so long ago how quick people were getting sick after the thing just touched them. Open wound, even a small one, was definitely way too much risky in that sort of a situation. Especially since the bastards were jumping all over the place, dripping like there was no tomorrow.

"How long can you going like that?" Moody asked instead.

"Depends," he shrugged. "But don't worry, it doesn't seems to be too dangerous."

"You have a weird perspective on what's dangerous, kid."

"You have no idea," Suguro smirked.

xxx

Molly Weasley never was too fond of Muggle world. It wasn't that she was seeing the non-magical people as something less, it was just... so odd. It seemed to be unnatural, so much different from how the things were working in her own world.

She felt so out of the place in this building they located her in. The dishes, the laundry, it all was done by the machines. The electricity ran through the building, filling all rooms with strong but cold light and that strange buzz she couldn't get used to, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it.

That was probably exactly how Suguro felt, back at the Grimmauld Place. No wonder he was so angry all the time. People were coming and going at all times, minding their own business and not paying too much attention to her, up until the moment somebody stopped right in front of her and coughed to catch her attention.

The man was a bit older than her, his hairline was already graying and recessing slightly. He wasn't very high nor looked particularly threading.

"So," he said, looking over her with wary eyes, after introducing himself as Joseph O'Callaghann. "You're the one who showed up with Suguro's key. Care to explain that?"

"He gave it to me," she said, looking him straight in the eyes.

"That's curious, since he's been missing for several days," the man grunted.

"I... we... he's not in any danger, I promise!"

The man just snorted at that. "You just brought up kid that was chewed on by a ghoul. How that's safe?"

"We didn't know what it was!" she protested.

"Then explain it to me, please. How come you showed up with his key, after he went missing?"

"I... it's true he gave it to me, really! We just... we were worried about Harry and when we heard about the exorcism, we wanted to know everything there was to know from the source."

"So you are magical?"

Molly slowly nodded, uncomfortable with revealing that to the Muggles. Again. It would be hard to not notice, since she walked into this damned building levitating her son in the air.

"And you guys just decided that you can do whatever you want, as long as somebody is not waving his crazy stick around?" he groaned. "You people are really the worst!"

"We never did anything to you, me or anybody else, I promise you!"

"And I was supposed to know that how exactly?" Joseph growled. "Do you even know it felt, having him disappear like that?!"

"My son is lying in your hospital, Merlin damn it!" Molly shouted back, her face reddening in frustration.

"So, that should make everything fine?" he said, his voice cold and unforgiving. "Do you have any idea how many kids I saw vanish only for their dead body to show up at some point later?"

He moved towards her, fury burning in his eyes, but Mrs. Weasley stood her ground, looking straight at his face.

"What," she hissed. "Are you going to hit me now?"

He certainly looked like he was at least thinking about that.

"No," the exorcist exhaled deeply, visibly forcing himself to tone down. "I'm not going to. We're both pissed and scared right now and that wouldn't lead to anything to solve our problems. I'm just going to walk away and catch my breath and you are going to sit here, waiting for somebody to tell you when you can visit that kid of yours."

Molly licked her lips. She wanted to argue back, because the accusation – and implications that followed – hurt. The exorcist was painting her wonderful world in dark and grim colors, like it was an awful place lacking morality and all the other important things. That wasn't the image they were fighting for now, now it wasn't something both of her brothers died for.

The worst thing was, the man was right, at least partially. Molly had no idea what she would do if it was one of her children to disappear like that, without a word or trace, only for somebody suspicious show up several days later with an item that belonged to them.

"One more thing," O'Callaghan said, looking straight at her. "Your wand, please."

"Excuse me?" she gasped.

"Your wand," he repeated. "I'm not going to risk safety of anyone here just because you decide to wave that stick around."

"What about my safety? And my son?"

"Well, if Suguro is as fine as you suggest, then there isn't anything to worry about, right?" a wolfish smile spread on his lips. "We're going to learn about that soon enough."

"Am I a prisoner?" Molly finally asked, handing her wand with a slightly shaking hand.

"I don't know," he shrugged, carefully taking the wooden item away from her. "Is Suguro?"

"No!" she protested immediately.

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

Molly was missing her wand already.

xxx

A sudden loud crack echoed through halls not long after Suguro and Moody returned to the others and declared the building to be safe once again. It wasn't even close to the end of all things related to the attack. The exorcist wanted to at least set up several another chalk rings around the place, so people could retreat when needed and Alastor agreed with the idea. If something managed to snuck inside without them noticing, it sure could repeat the feat and murder them all in the sleep. A small miracle it didn't happen already.

"Somebody Apparated," Sirius muttered, furrowing his brow slightly.

"And that's good?" Suguro asked, looking from over the building plan he and Moody were currently studying to find the best spots for ghoul–safe zones.

"Nobody unwanted is ever going to be able to creep inside this place," he explained with a small shrug.

"Gee, not so long ago I saw just how well that precious security of yours is working."

Sirius grinned. "Somebody's snarky!"

"About seventy kilograms of an undead body landed on me and tried to eat my face not that long ago," Ryuji groaned. "And don't forget that little detail about still being kidnapped."

"Think about it like a vacation?"

Suguro looked at him.

"What?" Sirius shook his head energetically, like he wanted to shake off the uncomfortable gaze.

"Nothing," Ryuji sighed. "I just have that weird feeling that the brain of your turned into a pickle some time ago."

"Not you too!" Sirius growled. "That woman wouldn't shut up about it! And besides, what if I do drink a little too much? It's not like I have anything else to do..."

"I'm not having this conversation," Suguro murmured, hiding face in his hands. Especially not now. He just ran up and down the stairs fighting his way through and then ran back and forth the whole place, looking for more things that wanted to smack him in the face. The fact that the building still wasn't cleaned from every dangerous magical traps and creatures wasn't helping. He was really grateful that the old dude without a leg decided to join him. It sounded really miserable, but without the man he would be in trouble. Besides, being a cripple didn't stop Moody from being a badass.

Only now they were finished and he could finally sit down, enjoying his new collection of bruises. Exorcising a bunch of aggressive demons wasn't without a price too; right now Suguro felt like somebody wiped floor with him. It was more psychological exhaustion than anything else - there was a reason why exorcists never worked alone.

At least the kids enjoyed their time, waving around burning salvia around and setting up little places for burning aloe oil to cleanse the air from whatever the ghouls left behind.

The nervous footsteps were easily heard and getting louder, meaning that this short moment of peace was coming to an end.

"What happened?" Mr. Weasley ran into the room, looking around wildly, like he was expecting another ghoul to jump right at him. Few others followed – but both the grump in black and that high and stiff lady decided to stay away from conversation for the moment. "They told me at work, so I rushed here-"

"And you are too late to even pick up the trash," Moody finished the sentence for him.

"Oh shut up!" Mr. Weasley groaned. "Molly... and my son! They told me...!"

"There was an incident," Suguro started to explain with a heavy sigh. "The boy got hurt during it and right now he is in a hospital, getting help he needs. His mother went with him."

"Hospital?" Mr. Weasley shook his head. "But St. Mungo would notify me immediately!"

"The problem is," Moody smirked. "It was not St. Mungo. Apparently our guest had a way out of his own and stayed here merely to humor us."

"A wha- What?!"

"It wasn't magic that attacked," Ryuji continued. Or tried to, since it happened to be the moment when other people decided to join him and the dog-man. "So your people would have no idea how to deal with it."

Moody and the grump with a crooked nose were giving each other dirty looks.

"Well, it might looks like a situation with exchanging hostages too, don't you think?" Moody smiled humorlessly at Suguro.

He decided that a small shrug was the best response for the moment, since the old man wasn't all that wrong. If it came to the worst, Joseph definitely would play this particular card. Or he's going to be ordered to do so by a higher power.

Mr. Weasley however didn't like the answer very much. He went pale for a short moment, becoming still as statue. Then his face twisted in an angry grimace and he marched straight at Suguro, grabbing him by the shirt.

"You asshole!" he growled. "You knew, didn't you?! You planned it all...!"

"Do you," Suguro said slowly, grabbing the man by the wrists. Pushing him away would definitely be a bad idea. One that could be easily mistaken for an attack of some sort. There were people trying to smack him in the face before. "Really believe that I would risk somebody's life if I could just wait for the night and walk away?"

"So what..." there was a defeated look at the man's face when he slowly sat down on the sofa. "What is going to happen to my family?"

"They are going to get help," Ryuji said, trying to sound gently. "Fred needs help of somebody who know how to deal with that kind of wound and he's going to get it."

"But St. Mungo..."

"Look," Ryuji sighed. "You people have no idea how to deal with that sort of things and we do know how to do that. There is a possibility that you could work it out on your own, but before then the kid would probably kick it."

"But... will they just let them go? Considering who we are?"

There was another question, the one that Mr. Weasley didn't dare to asked out loud.

They have kidnapped Suguro, after all. And his people were in their rights to do something.

Suguro sighed.

"The fact that I've send them to the hospital with the emergency key is telling a lot," he started to explain. "If I was in any real danger wouldn't you think that I would use it to get out as soon as possible?"

"Why didn't you?"

"I decided that I wasn't in too big trouble, considering how you were treating Harry," Suguro grimaced slightly. "on the other hand, knowing a bit about how frivolous you people are around memory modification I should've be more wary, but well..."

He shrugged.

"Besides, snatching me out of the street ended up as a really lucky thing for you."

Moody grimaced. Suguro was right, without him stuck at the Grimmauld Place at the time of the attack, the situation would be way more serious. Alastor was pretty sure that before they would even understand what they were up against it would be far too late. They didn't even know how to treat the wounds. To tell the truth Alastor hadn't the slightest idea if they could beat these things with spells at all; all the tricks he used during the fight were only pushing the monsters back.

"The question is," Snape sneered, voicing his opinion for the first time. "Why these... things showed up in the first place."

"Are you suggesting they were after me?" Suguro looked at him with interest.

"Are you trying to tell me they didn't?"

"Well, you do have a pretty high position as far as I know..." Moody grunted, unhappy that he was agreeing with the grump for some reason.

Severus frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I decided to do my own investigation," Alastor smirked. "And I happened to find this and that. Like the fact that our guest is apparently a head of a temple."

Suguro just rolled his eyes. " And I'm not. Yet."

"So somebody could go after you?" Severus continued pushing, trying to force the exorcist to admit… something.

"I hope not," he snorted, ignoring the unsaid accusations. "I would at least expect from my potential killer to be to do his homework and don't try to kill me with stuff I'm familiar with."

"He did recognized these - whatever they were - just by the smell," Hermione joined the conversation.

"Anyhow, I don't think there is somebody pissed enough at me to try," Suguro shrugged. "Especially something like that."

"They were just brainless monsters," Moody grunted. "Invisible for most of the time, but still..."

"Actually, they were too clever to just show up on their own," Ryuji grimaced slightly. "And their kind don't tend to show up out from the blue like that either. It was either one hell of a tamer or bunch of tamers with same familiars. Kinda overkilling it, when you could just snipe troublesome people from afar."

"So somebody was controlling them?"

"That what I just said," Suguro groaned. "And whoever it was, wasn't expecting an exorcist to be around."

"That just silly," Snape snorted. "Nobody can enter this building since nobody knows where it is."

"How come?" Suguro raised eyebrows.

"Magic," Severus sneered with noticeable satisfaction.

"That's cute, but none of you ever expected the... other side of supernatural to exist, right? Ghouls doesn't really count as humans, I believe."

"But to send anything they still would have to know the address," Moody pointed out.

"And you are sure that nothing was looking over your shoulder when you were telling where this place is to some of your friends?"

"These things didn't look like they were able to talk. Or read. Or comprehend anything too complicated."

"And there are much more intelligent spirits and demons wandering around," Suguro shrugged. "And right now, I'm the only person who knows how to deal with these things. So stop arguing already. You just sound stupid."

xxx

Minerva McGonagall was rarely visiting the Order of Phoenix headquarters. Not because she didn't want to be included in the fight, but because during the summer break her calendar was really stuffed.

There were Muggleborns to introduce to the magical world, there was the lesson timetable to create and all the staff related things to do before the August ends. She had to create her lesson plans in between reading responses from the families of all of the first years and writing back to answer any question they could have.

Because of that, while she was aware of the unusual guest at the Grimmauld Place for quite some time, it was the first time she actually meet the young man who called himself an exorcist.

Minerva had to admit, she was curious. Severus called him names usually reserved for Sirius Black, while Albus just said he was a very interesting person, though a bit rebellious.

The mess that welcomed her at the Grimmauld Place definitely wasn't something she expected, but she decided to keep her mouth shut and observe, before doing anything. It also gave her a chance to observe the unusual guest.

She ended up with a rather good impression. Even after Moody taunted him, the young man kept his cool.

"May I talk to you for a moment?" Minerva finally asked, after the people stopped arguing.

He looked up at her, then his gaze slowly wandered down and then it returned to her face.

Severus said that he lacked any sort of a respect towards his elders, but he didn't strike her like that sort of a person. Severus as usual was exaggerating. The exorcist seemed to be careful and calculating but not necessary hostile.

"Sure," he said.

She led him away from the group, so nobody would butt in to add their opinion or starts argue over some small thing.

The young exorcist sat in front of her and waited in silence for her to start talking.

Which was the hard part.

"I don't want to sound like I'm trying to rationalize our wrongdoings," Minerva sighed. "But I feel like an explanation is actually needed."

"Then do explain, please," he said with a sigh. He definitely didn't seem like he expected her words to change anything at all. Well, considering his situation it wasn't all that surprising. By all means, the magical world sometimes seemed like it was filled with self-righteous, better-than-thou dimwits unable to even hold a proper conversation. There were times when she had to fight hard to keep the embarrassed blush at bay, because muggle parents of her students pointed out some uncomfortable truths.

"This is going to sound ridiculous, but you were kidnapped to keep everyone safe," Minerva said. Then grimaced. "It sounds even worse when you say it out loud."

"It kinda does," Suguro agreed with an amused chuckle.

"You probably already know that we are at war, right?"

He nodded, so Minerva continued. "You see, the problem is, the enemy already knows who we are. Or is at least able to guess well enough. because of that there is a real possibility that we are being observed."

His brow furrowed. "I doubt that anybody got enough resources to keep an eye on a whole bunch of people and stay in hiding at the same time."

"That's true. Or would be, if not for the fact the government decided to turn Dumbledore into a public enemy," she sighed. "Because the Headmaster is under suspicion, all his friends, workers and old allies might also be under discreet observation. It wouldn't be such an obstacle if not for some of the Death Eaters holding quite powerful positions in the Ministry."

"If I understand the situation correctly, they're also rather... not fond of anything from the non-magical world, right?" Suguro asked. "If yes, then why are you expecting them to pay attention to what are you doing away from your world?"

"If only it was so easy," she sighed. "Then we would be seated in some nice, muggle place instead of this grim mansion."

"Well, at least with you standing against people with resources like that I might understand the paranoia. What I don't understand is how kidnapping bring less attention than... I don't know, a visit in a church? Sending a normal letter?"

"Sadly it is less suspicious to snatch somebody off the street than stopping and actually talking," she sighed. "Especially after we used a non-magical person to get Harry out of trouble."

"So, now they are paranoid about you having agents all over the place and plotting taking over the world or something?"

"Exactly," she nodded. "Minus the sarcasm."

"Okay," he nodded. "That somewhat makes sense. But you still made contact with me..."

"Mr. Weasley work is to find charmed items in the muggle world and turning them back into mundane items. Since the magical world need to stay hidden..."

"It include messing with memory of people unlucky enough to stumble upon your trash?"

"Something like that," she nodded. "As far as our people are concerned, you are just one of those people, but managed to slip during the intervention. Mr. Weasley simply asked his friends to help him cover the situation, before it land him in some sort of a trouble."

It was easy to guess that letting somebody slip and probably telling stories about people with wooden sticks would be a really troublesome situation for somebody whose job was to prevent situations like that.

Leaving a false trace in the documentation was not that difficult; sadly, many of the Ministry workers were making their lives easier by messing up with files. Arthur was protesting against such a practice for quite some time, so he was going to be viewed as a hypocrite if somebody actually decide to look into the situation, but that wasn't necessary a bad thing. The worst he could meet would be a knowing smile or amused chuckle.

"Huh," Suguro blinked. "That's actually pretty clever."

Minerva herself found it to be more despicable than anything else, being forced to trick a way of communication through lies and misdirections.

"Clever? Not really," she said, winking her nose. "But we prefer to not bring too much attention to people that could know something about Harry. For their own good."

"Does it have anything to do with Harry and his cousin being attacked by a soul-sucking prison guards some time ago?"

"More or less, yes," she nodded. "We definitely were not expecting something like that to happen, but..."

"Since there are Death Eaters playing active roles in that government of yours it's not that much of a surprise," the exorcist shrugged. "I'm still pretty annoyed about the whole kidnapping thing, but I have to admit, the timing couldn't be better."

"What exactly do you have in mind?"

"We don't know much about you guys. Up until not so long ago we had no idea that there is some weird guy that can't stay properly dead but would like to make all the normal people dead. But with me here and that woman there, you want it or not, the information is spreading."

Minerva let a thin smile to spread over her lips. "I don't think," she said slowly. "That this is a thing we would call a good one. But I understand your viewpoint."

Minerva tried to steer the conversation so she could learn something more about the young man or the other exorcists, but he was clever enough to avoid most of her traps.

"So?" Sirius jogged towards her as soon as she finished the talk and Suguro was away enough to not hear him. "How bad was it?"

"Bad?" Minerva blinked, not understanding. "It was a perfectly fine conversation."

"Huh," Sirius furrowed his brow in confusion. "That's odd."

"How come?"

"Well, Molly tried to talk to him, you know her, fretting over everybody... it ended up nasty. Really, really nasty. Like me and Snive... Snape sort of nasty."

"That's surprising," Minerva raised her eyebrows slightly. "He might be a bit rough on the edges, but besides that..."

Besides that, she found herself liking him. Being a bit jealous for his teachers too.

xxx

While Suguro was talking with McGonagall, the now–illegal carpet was discarded and the adults started the clean up in the library, that took the worst hit during the fight, not wanting to let kids wander around cursed and dark books.

Sometime during that Tonks showed up once again, looking around with suspicion on her face, since the umbrella stand she was always tripping over wasn't in its usual place. Sirius quickly explained to her what had happened while she was dying from boredom pushing papers at the Ministry. Then she grabbed Moody and demanded the rest of the story.

Alastor was just finishing, when the exorcist himself approached them.

"What?" he asked. "Found some new weird thing creeping around?"

"Actually..." Ryuji started slowly. "I think you could help me with something."

"And what that something is?" the old Auror raised his eyebrows.

"I want you to curse me, I'm curious how does that feels," he said in a matter of a fact voice.

"You want me to what?" Alastor blinked, not sure if he was more baffled or just surprised by the whole idea.

"You guys are quite certain that the merry terrorist group of yours is going to attack normal people sooner or later," the exorcist pointed out in a dry voice.

"We are actually confused why aren't they started already," Moody admitted.

"So it's pretty logical, isn't it?" Suguro continued. "Learning how these feels in safe environment is much more logical course of action than just wandering around and hoping for the best."

"So you decided that getting cursed is the best idea ever?" Moody snorted. "Kid, you do know that this is illegal, right?"

"Like that was an issue when you decided to kidnap me," Suguro returned the smirk.

"Smartass."

"Anyhow, the experience would be useful even if I end up far away from that conflict of yours," Ryuji continued. "I still would be capable of identifying the cause if somebody come to me with an odd problem to solve."

"And you think a dark wizard would just throw childish jinxes around instead of some deadly curse?" Alastor snorted.

"Even you people seem to have a rather low opinion on humans without magic," Ryuji slightly raised eyebrows. "So I think an amusing curse to show off how funny these low-lives are would be just the thing."

"Well," Tonks started slowly, poking her own cheek with a tip of her wand. "To tell the truth that exactly what happened during the tournament last year, right? Nobody killed, just bunch of people hanging in the air. Just like that."

With a smirk, she pointed her wand at Suguro and waved it, murmuring something under her breathe.

Suddenly he felt like something yanked him by the ankles, hard.

The feeling was really odd and it got even stranger when his brain finally decided that there really was nothing holding him.

While Suguro's brain was being weirded out by the situation, his body acted on its own. As soon as the invisible force flipped him over and began to raise him in the air, he grabbed the nearest object to stop the movement. It wasn't working and the ground was still getting further, so his arms did the second best thing. They threw. And they just happened to hold onto a chair.

Tonks shrieked and dropped on the floor just a split second before the heavy, wooden chair smashed into a wall just where she stood a moment ago. The witch covered her head, to shield it from the rain of bits and pieces of broken wood; the force was enough to break one of the legs. Doing so, she lost the control of the spell and Suguro was freed. He landed graciously and rolled over, immediately standing up.

"That was interesting," he said.

"Did you just threw a chair at me?!" Tonks cried, looking up at him.

"Sorry," he gave a small shrug and a smile. "You should've warned me before doing that."

"You don't seem to be too winded up about it," she murmured angrily, slowly standing up, and then trying to shake of all the splinters from her robes.

"It's not the first time something grabbed me," Suguro said. "But it was the first time I couldn't kick it in the face."

"It was pretty close, if you ask me!"

"And it was your fault," Moody smirked. "Shouldn't have announced it."

"Then you would be the once smacked with a chair," Tonks rolled her eyes.

"He could try," Alastor commented dryly.

"He did beat you up with a broom."

"And that's the reason I'm going to show him all kind of curses one can throw at others for fun!"

"You just want a satisfaction, right?" Suguro chuckled.

"It was a lucky shot, brat. One that wouldn't be repeated."

Ryuji raised eyebrows. "Is this some kind of a dare?"

"You might be one tough little shit, but I have more years of active duty under my belt that you have ever lived!"

"And only one leg," Sguro smiled.

"Asshole," Moody smiled back.

Tonks looked slowly at the one, then her gaze travelled towards the other. Then, even slowed, she backed away down the corridor, to hide behind her cousin.

"It's just me, or they decided to be friends?" she murmured quietly, not wanting to be heard by nobody but Sirius.

"Dunno," he whispered back. "But they are creeping me out!"

xxx

Fred blinked, trying to remember why he was feeling like he was feeling right now. One of the candy experiments went awry? He wandered somewhere he wasn't supposed to, because he was trying to catch a creature or two without his mom knowing about it?

But no, that definitely wasn't the ceiling at Grimmauld Place. Way too pretty and way too white. And there was a Muggle lamp on it. The lamp was really fascinating and he would love to look at it some more, but gaping at the light sources when his head already was trying him wasn't the best idea.

Fred groaned and turned his head to the side, trying to guess where he was and how he ended up there.

And why he was feeling warm and cold at the same time.

At least he was lying in bed, with comfortable pillow under his head. Apparently, there was also a needle going right inside his arm. There was also a thin, transparent tube connected to it and a bag with some sort of fluid inside.

" What the...?!"

"Oh, you have woken up!" somebody said brightly, like there wasn't anything wrong with teenagers with needles inside their bodies. "How are you feeling?"

"No offense, but crappy," Fred murmured, trying to be careful. Sick or not, the Statue of Secrecy was still binding him to keeping all sort of secrets from the Muggles. And the man by his bedside definitely was one. He was wearing long, white cloak, with similar sort-of-heart-shaped thing attached to it Suguro had in his bag, along with these brilliant business management books.

"Do you remember what happened to you?"

"Uh..." he frowned slightly. It was really hard to forget something like that. "I think something was trying to eat me?"

The man snorted and shook his head, clearly amused by this poor choice of a joke. "Close enough," he agreed.

"Now, I need to check out how are you," the doctor said, pulling out a small notebook and a pen out of his pocket. "To do that, I'm going to start with asking you few questions. Is that okay with you?"

"Um..." he murmured, unsure how actually he was supposed to tell this muggle doctor that he really wasn't supposed to tell him a thing. Especially about the while incident, since it took place in a rather magical spot.

The doctor noticed his discomfort and just smiled, hiding the notebook back in his pocket. "Are you going to feel more comfortable if somebody fetch your mother here?"

"Mom's here?" Fred blinked, surprised.

"She brought you here," the muggle doctor nodded.

"Oh. Yeah, that's a good idea."

"Then just wait a minute, okay?"

Fred nodded and the doctor walked away.

That gave him a little bit time to think. He wasn't sure about what exactly he was supposed to think, and his head wasn't helping, throbbing uncomfortably, but still. He was in completely different world now, the one he didn't know thing about. Because dad, no matter how enthusiastic he was about his little hobby, didn't seem to be very reliable. Luckily, it didn't took a lot of time for the doctor to return with mom following him in hurry. There was another man tagging along, but Fred didn't pay attention to him.

Same did Molly, her mind completely occupied with finally seeing her child alive. Besides, after all time that passed on mind–numbing waiting she was quite used to the man following her like a shadow.

"Hi, mom!" Fred smiled weakly from the bed. He still looked very pale and had dark ring under his eyes, but his eyes were no longer shining with fever.

"Sweet Merlin, sweetie!" she gasped beating the distance between the entrance and his bed in record time. "How are you feeling?"

"Honestly?" The boy grimaced. "Like a dungbomb that lied the whole year all the way down in some corner of my school trunk."

"Don't worry, honey!" she said. "You are still so bandaged up, but just wait for me to get my wand back and put you all together!"

"Uh, no, no putting him together in an instant!" O'Callaghann immediately protested.

"Why?" Molly furrowed her brow looking back at him. "He clearly is still hurting. Why do you want for him to suffer?!"

"Before you call me an evil bastard, you need to understand something," the exorcist sighed heavily. "We do know what we are doing. We were doing that for centuries and are still reinventing the process, making it more efficient, safe and painless."

"And I can make it all disappear in a matter of seconds!"

"Yes and sealing all the nasty stuff we're slowly taking out of him inside his body. Great idea. Can't see how that could go wrong!"

"I... I don't understand," she admitted.

"It's like..." Joseph scratched his chin, looking for the right words. "Like doing laundry. You're a housewife, you definitely have a precious dress or blouse you have to actually wash by hand, because anything else would destroy it, right?"

"Yes," Molly nodded, blushing slightly. "I have something like that."

"We are doing exactly the same thing here," he continued to explain. "Healing it all immediately would seal the poison in his veins, while forcing it out all at once would lead to a state of shock. Neither one is good, so we're just taking it slowly. It might be more uncomfortable, but it's also the safest way to do it."

"Isn't keeping poison inside a bad thing?" Fred decided to butt in the conversation, since it was about him. He also had quite a lot of practice of being poisoned, since he and George were testing all their funny candies on themselves. Usually the best way to feel better after getting sick was to get sick all over the place just to get all the nasty stuff out as soon as possible.

"Usually, yes but... trust me on that, we tried the faster way - did the blood dialysis and whatsnot - and the results were..." Joseph grimaced. "Not pleasant."

"Dialysis?"

The man winkled his nose. "I think you don't really want to know about that."

"Mom, I'm going to be fine," Fred grinned. "And I think dad is going to be so jealous!"

"Of course he is," she rolled her eyes.

The doctor coughed, deciding to speak for the first time. Up until now, he was occupied with changing the bandages and looking at the wounds. "It's going to take about a week for you to be up and kicking again. But in two or three days, if you'll be feeling good enough, somebody would talk you through the basics."

"Basics?" Molly blinked. "Basics of what?"

"The wounds received from ghouls and any other demons are much more than just cut flesh," Joseph explained. "They create a connection between a man and the side of the world that stays invisible."

"Oh," she blinked. "He... told us, about how it supposed to work. That seeing things. Well, to tell the truth he was explaining it to my daughter. She was affected too, you see. Never told us a word!"

"That's a pretty usual situation," he said. "People don't like to admit such things. They don't want to sound crazy."

"I wouldn't…!"

"Maybe not," the man just shrugged. "But you would start looking for some answers about what was going on with her, wouldn't you?"

Molly slowly nodded and he continued. "Considering the fact that you people don't like to look for thing in our world, you would probably ask doctors and researchers in your world. And they would come up with that answer, since it is so plausible."

Fred grimaced. "That makes too much sense for me. But hey, if this is the case, then maybe in St. Mungo some people are actually like me and Gin? And that funny Loony girl, she sees weird stuff all the time."

"This might be a possibility," Joseph nodded. "We usually have priests checking out psychiatric wards and other places from time to time, just to be safe. Though, some people prefer to stick with being crazy."

Fred could guess why pretty well. These things were freaky and it would be just easier to talk yourself into them being just some sort of a boogieman than the real deal. Seeing them all the time… he hoped that he would get used to them soon enough, because the disconnecting feeling that haunted him every single time he saw something with the corner of his eye – and then turned his head just to see the thing really floating there – was really awful.

xxx

"Shouldn't you be more... I don't know, stressed up?" Ginny asked. "These things almost killed you!"

"Wouldn't be the first time," Suguro just shrugged it off, like all the other disturbing things.

Only two days had passed since the ghouls attacked. Surprisingly enough, the relationship between the exorcist and everybody else – maybe excluding her dad, who was worrying about Fred and Snape, who just hated everyone – got better. She and Harry were helping with drawing the seals that were going to keep spirits away and even Hermione and Ron joined in, glad that they could finally do something important. Suguro was mostly supervising them and correcting the mistakes and sometimes shooing overly enthusiastic Sirius away from the chalk.

"Excuse me?" Hermione raised her head from over a very complicated sigil she was trying to copy from the book.

"It's pretty much how being an exorcist looks like," he explained. "You almost end up dead every few days."

"That doesn't sound like a good career choice," Ginny snickered.

Suguro grinned back.

Since the adults get a proof that the evil spirits indeed exist and exorcising them was possible, they stopped bugging him every five minutes about the illusionary trick he supposedly pulled on Harry. Besides, he got the chance to beat at least part of his frustration away, so he was much less pissed off than during the previous days. Or maybe just tired. The seals were complicated and the house ridiculously huge, with a lot of ways to get inside.

"It is interesting."

"And dead set of tearing you apart," Ginny shot back.

"That's one of the reasons," he said. "Seriously though, usually you know exactly what are you going to face and when. I just have a weird luck."

"I can sympathize," Harry grimaced. "But I would pay you real money just to keep me away from all that mess. Boredom, that's all I want from life."

Ron patted him on the back. "You're going to get plenty, after we're done with this stuff."

Then, the front doors broke in a huge ball of blue fire and fell down onto the floor with a loud thud.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**  
**It's Time For Tea**

Konekomaru Miwa always loved the technology and now he loved it even more. Thanks to the internet and forcing brothers Okumura to buy a decent internet camera, the whole group could still communicate with ease, even if they ended up in many different places. Which they did.

The Okumura brothers were travelling the most, sometimes not even together, but Suguro was the one who ended up stationed overseas. It wasn't a complete surprise. To tell the truth, Konekomaru would be deeply surprised if it wasn't element of some overly complicated plan of Mephisto. Still, for the first month he felt almost like an unlucky fish that got thrown onto the beach: completely out of his place and without a chance for returning to his comfort zone.

It was stupid of him and Konekomaru was painfully aware of that fact too. He was an advisor, after all. Before they even finished their training, he was already analyzing actions of his friend – who was the future head of the temple – and finding out more efficient ways to solve the problem.  
But without Bon around, Konekomaru suddenly became a player himself and he didn't like this role much. Speaking out loud instead of whispering proposals into somebody's else ears, making decisions on the spot instead of spending time to further analyze all the available data… it just wasn't his world.

At least the Internet let him to go back to his comfort zone for a short moment, to play from the shadows and just keep an eye on all of his friends. Well, it usually did. Long messages written in English were not appearing every other day and it was even less usual for them to inform about somebody getting kidnapped by a group of magicians of all things.

"I have no idea what that message was about, " Rin whined. He showed up shortly after Konekomaru send the messages to the whole group about the odd message on the board. "Was he drunk, or something?"

"...did you just ran it through a translator?"

"Well, yeah!" Rin blinked, rocking left and right on the Konekomaru's bed, mangling the sheets and blankets he was sitting on. The bed was the only thing in the entire place that proved someone was indeed living here. The rest of the room looked more like a study of some religious–crazy informatician. There were high, heavy bookcases and cabinets filled either with books or electronic parts and tools, all of them in neat order. There was also a dark corner, shielded from the light coming through the window, that looked almost like a command center from some cheap sci–fi movie. A row of cute cat pictures hanging over the computer screen wasn't doing much against that impression.

"It was like a real gibberish, you know!" Okumura continued his pouting.

"No," Konekomaru sighed. "It wasn't. "You really should work on your English, you know!"

"I've finished school some time ago! No way I'm doing anything like that ever again!"

"Whatever," Konekomaru finally said. "Your brother is...?"

"At work, probably," Rin shrugged. "Considering the time..."

"And is he aware that you just decided to use the Key and pop at a different continent, breaking several laws by doing so?"

"It's not like anyone is going to ask me for my Passport when I'm here," Okumura rocked on the balls of his feet, still not looking at him. So Yukio hadn't known nothing, because otherwise he would at least make sure that the papers were dealt with.

"Whatever," Konekomaru groaned. "You're going to stay here, we're going to set up an Internet conversation with the whole group…"

"He made it sounds like Suguro was kidnapped by those people," Rin pointed out with a frown. "I don't like waiting when stuff like that happens. I want to– "

"So you do understand English after all?" he massaged his temples in hopes to keep the headache at bay. "Make up your mind, for crying out loud!"

"I guessed," Okumura shrugged. Then he pushed hands down his pockets and looked around the room, like he was trying to fake disinterest. "It wasn't that hard, you know."

"I bet it wasn't," Konekomaru politely agreed. "But we still can't just go there and hope that we will be lucky enough to find him. The place is way to huge."

"So what we are supposed to do?" Rin shook his head. "Just sit here and hope for the best?"

That was not an option and they both knew it perfectly.

"Try to talk to Sir Pheles, for the starters. He likes you and if somebody knows something about hidden places it would be him."

Rin blinked. "That sounds like a good idea."

Then he walked out, because as he said – sitting around wasn't his thing.

Konekomaru sighed. "Meanwhile, I'm going to make a call home."

He was probably too hard on Okumura. After all, he himself barely could force himself to sit and think things through instead of rushing to the other side of the world, to do… well, something. And he was the plan guy.

The sad thing about life was the fact that all the carefully crafted plans tended to be thrown out of the window pretty often. Especially, if Rin had something to say about the whole situation. Only few hours passed since Konekomaru talked with Okumura, and the reality already managed to crumble and fell into pieces.

Figures, Konekomaru though.

xxx

Fred still had fever, but at least he wasn't nauseous anymore. Just a bit drowsy. The muggle medicine made him feel a bit funny too. But that wasn't a problem, not at all.

The problem was the fact that Fred was bored out of his mind. Usually when he was in the Hospital Wing, his brother was there too, so they could kill the time in some way. Or at least bet how many minutes it would take Ms. Pomfrey to unleash her wrath at them.

Here, however, he was alone, safe for the muggle medical personnel and mom, who probably was way more out of place and scared than he felt. But while she was getting all sorts of talks about the funny demonic things that floated around and were invisible for most of the time, they all decided that Fred needed time to rest.

He was well rested now. Not in a mood to look at the bed, even.

Fred carefully looked around. There was no bag with water attached to his forearm right now, even if the Muggles decided that leaving this odd, plastic thing in his arm was a good idea. The lack of the bag was a good thing, since it would be hard to move around carrying something like that around.

Fred slowly slipped out of the bed and winced, when his bare feet touched the cold floor. He should probably move his legs back up and look around the room for some slippers or even socks, but Fred was stubborn and bored enough to ignore the uncomfortable feeling.

His legs were a little on the wobbly side and Fred needed to prep himself up with the small night table that stood on the side of his bed. After a short moment, he was good enough to walk around a bit, so he moved to the window.

The outside wasn't interesting at all. Unless your name was Arthur Weasley. All Fred could see on the outside, was a sizeable muggle parking lot, with a lot of people hurrying between the vehicles, minding their own business, parking their cars or driving away. He could see the stairs that led to the building too, same as a weirdly shaped path, that was slightly elevated and led around the stairs. It made sense only after Fred saw someone sitting on a chair with big wheels being pushed by another person. The odd path was wide enough to safely manipulate this odd invention and get the sick person on the ground level without using levitating spells.

"Dad would really love this," he said to himself - a clear sign that he was going insane because of all that boredom - bending, so he could see the outside a little bit better.

"Your Dad definitely is not going to like the fact that you're out of your bed, pal."

Fred jumped, startled by the voice. He hadn't hear the doors opening, steps outside, nothing! Were these people using cushioning charms on their shoes? But wait, they were Muggles...

He turned away, almost expecting to see Madam Pomfrey, even if it was quite impossible to happen in a muggle facility.

The woman that stood in the doors looked vaguely familiar. Was she one of the people who were talking to mom back when they first arrived here? Fred honestly couldn't tell.

She looked like she was in her twenties or thirties - it was hard to tell. Her big, dark eyes were making her look considerably younger and Fred was pretty sure that her deeply tanned skin was perfect for hiding things like winkles too.

"Uh, sorry?" he said with a goofy smile on his face. "But I'll get crazy if I stay in the bed any longer."

"A little bit of madness might be of some use," the woman snickered.

"I'm crazy enough, I assure you, Ma'am!" Fred was about to bow in a theatrical manner but this time his body protested against such a movement, so he had to stop half-way through.

The woman shook her head with clear amusement written all over her face.

"Look," Fred sighed. "I'm just good enough to be bored out of my mind. And I've slept for like a day or even more, so I can't do that anymore...!"

"So what, you're going to promise me to be a good boy and go back to bed if I find you something to do?"

"Um, yeah?"

"So what do you want then, a gameboy?"

Fred only blinked in confusion.

"Honestly!" the woman sighed. "You people!"

"I uh... I wouldn't mind if you could bring me a business management book, or something?" Fred muttered. "My brother and I... we sort of borrowed some of these out of Suguro's bag and they were pretty interesting!"

The woman stared at him for a short moment, then started to chuckle.

"You're probably the first person I ever knew to call something like that interesting," she explained. "But sure, I can find something like that for you. Or send somebody else to do that."

"And take the credit?"

"Well, that's the chain of power for you," she shrugged. "Now get back to bed before I drag you there myself."

Fred obediently moved away from the window and returned where he was supposed to be in the first place. His feet were rather grateful for that too; they were ice-cold already and he wasn't walking around for too long.

The woman stayed long enough to make sure that he actually was going back under covers, but left before he actually wrapped himself up with the sheets.

"Huh," Fred blinked, rubbing his feet against each other to get them warm a little bit faster. "Who she was anyway?"

He probably wasn't going to meet her again anytime soon, considering the fact that she was going to send somebody else for the book - if she wasn't saying that to just humor him - she was too high on the ladder to actually do stuff like that. Fred was curious, why she decided to check on him in the first place. He felt, like there would be a lot of waiting, before he will get an actual answer to anything at all.

"Well," he mumbled. "Guess now I know, how Harry felt like."

Bored out of his mind, freaked out by the lack of answers while the evil was lurking in the shadows and pure annoyance at the people who decided that they knew better.

Fred moved a bit to the right, trying to find a more comfortable position, then decided the problem was in his pillow. But no matter how he smacked it, it just wasn't good enough. Because of the fever, his skin was oversensitive and every winkle on the sheets felt like it was rubbing painfully right against the burnt marks the ghoul left on his body.

At least his feet were not painfully cold anymore.

Fred dropped onto the pillow with a painful sigh, feeling defeated and still not tired for even a tiniest bit.

The universe seemed to have some mercy in store for him; shortly after Fred started to believe that the woman actually lied to him, someone showed up to drop a bunch of books on the night table. And then was startled by the enthusiastic reaction Fred had at the sight of the textbooks.

Well, maybe, just maybe, he spend a little bit too much with Hermione and she rubbed on him a little.

On the other hand, the Muggles did a really fascinating thing, turning running a business into an actual science, with rules and tactics and a lot of reasons behind even a tiniest little thing.

A big part of each book was mostly about the - surprise, surprise - muggle market and banks, and other stuff that wasn't even existing in the magical world. It was interesting anyway, but Fred felt like he was lacking a whole bunch of information on how the Muggles developed all these things and why. He would bug someone to bring him more.

For the moment however Fred was satisfied with reading all about selling tactics, uncomfortable pillow completely forgotten.

xxx

Right after the front doors of Grimmauld Place nr 12 hit the floor, a giant, horned cat landed in them with a menacing roar, shocking all the members of the Order of The Phoenix who flooded the corridor.

"What!" was all Moody could say, because there simply were no words to describe the situation. Then he quickly looked at Suguro; the exorcist didn't seem to be too stressed about the sudden break in. More like pleasantly surprised. So the danger wasn't that dangerous, even if it still made Alastor question the reality.

"Is that your cat?" It wasn't a question the old Auror planned to ask, but it somehow slipped out anyway. Mostly because the beast was huge, pissed off and right in front of him.

"I told you that somebody is going to show up," Suguro answered with a mocking smile.

"Is this a cat?!" Sirius gasped, pointing his wand at the beast.

Whatever it was, it wasn't alone. There were two riders on top of it, which was even more ridiculous than just a monstrous black cat breaking in a place that was supposed to be hidden from everyone.

The first rider jumped down and landed on the floor graciously. It was a young man, lean and with the most startling blue eyes Alastor even seen. Which was quite weird, considering he was clearly Asian. There was also a katana in his hand, the blade still unsheathed.

The other person followed him. This one a woman, with an eye patch and long, blond hair, fashioning a white kimono of all things. She looked around, a single muscle twitching on her face like she was trying to not grimace with disgust and finally, she looked straight at Suguro.

"Suguro–dono," she said. "You appear to be in quite interesting relations with your kidnappers. Was your mind tampered with?"

While she was talking in English, her accent was heavy. When Ryuji was speaking, he sounded almost like he spend his entire life on the British Isles and she was just the opposite. The words were still easily recognizable, but they sounded just… off.

"O'Callaghann hadn't explained that this would be impossible?"

"I would expect a gratitude instead of nitpicking, Suguro–dono."

The blue–eyed stranger was looking back and forth between the two, the frown on his forehead deepening, like he was unsure how to react. Then he said something in Japanese. It sounded almost like he was protesting. The answer came, also in Japanese – it seemed it was the Order's turn to feel excluded from the conversation.

"Oh, you decided to show up too?" Suguro said, like he had noticed him only now. He knew mercy – mostly over his own nerves that wouldn't be able to stand more of his friend jumping round and demanding to be included in the conversation – and switched to Japanese.

"_Hey, I'm here to save you and that the welcome I get?!_" Rin protested. "_You really are hopeless, you know!_"

"_I never planned to get kidnapped,_" Suguro shrugged. "_As you can see, it turned out weirdly._"

"_Well,_" Rin pouted. "_At least you're not in the another castle, Princess._"

"_Hadn't I told you enough times already to drop that nickname?_" Suguro groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"_It's getting funnier and funnier,_" Rin snickered.

"_Boys, focus,_" Mamushi reprimanded them. "_I would like to know what exactly is going on._"

"Um… can you please switch back to English?" Sirius waved his hand at the unusual guests. "We… sort of would really want to know if we are fighting or something."

xxx

If there was any situation Harry wasn't expecting to happen at all, it definitely was it.

Never in his entire live he would suspect that Muggles would decide to just break in like that. Not into a building that was kept safe by magic - and most powerful of the known kind! - and definitely not while riding a giant, horned cat.

The world was definitely not done with making fun of him, because somehow instead of fighting, they all ended up sitting around the kitchen table, drinking tea.

Because that was making so much sense!

It was so very awkward too. Remus was trying to make a good impression, while Sirius was just openly staring at the cat, who decided that switching to more cat-like size was a good idea sometime after they learned that the wizards were not hostile. Now the cat was sipping the cream out of a small plate, but didn't seem to be too satisfied with it.

Meanwhile Moody wasn't even trying to hide the fact that he was staring at the young man who barely could put two sentences together in English.

Harry had no idea what exactly set the old Auror so off about the guy. He seemed nice. Spend most of the time bugging Suguro for translating the conversation for him, while the other exorcist was answering from time to time with clear annoyance in his voice or even pushing the man away. Then he was being pushed back. It was probably the first time when Harry saw Suguro doing something well… bratty. Only now, he noticed how tense the exorcist was for entire time he was at the Grimmauld Place. It made Harry feel a pang of jealously, though it wasn't making any sense at all.

Of course Suguro had every right to be tense, forced to live with his kidnappers, even if the wizards actually hadn't had any bad intents behind their actions. He also had every reason to feel comfortable with his friends around. if Harry understood it completely, then Suguro and the blue-eyed man found side by side and not only once. Harry knew exactly how it was to be sure that someone got his backs no matter what and how bad it was to suddenly not have that sort of backup.

The woman, who apparently belonged to Suguro's temple as far as Harry understood, looked like she was the scary one. Especially her stare was just plain terrifying and the sharp, red line of her make-up wasn't helping at all. It only made her pale eyes with pupils that seemed to be unnaturally small even sharper.

"You truly decided to stay kidnapped?" she asked, clearly annoyed.

"There is a long explanation to that, but yes," Suguro said and shrugged. "And it was a good thing, too."

"I still would prefer for you to leave the place for a bit, just to inform us that you are fine!"

"That is more complicated," Suguro grimaced. "I doubt I would be even able to get back to this building once leaving, so I had to plan accordingly."

She frowned. "That doesn't make any sense! All you have to do it to follow the address...!"

"I'm afraid that's not so easy," Sirius snickered. "Try to tell him the address."

The woman opened her mouth, then frowned.

"Interesting," she said after a short moment.

"What is interesting is how you people managed to find this place," Professor Moody grunted, his magical eye barely leaving the blue-eyed man even for a moment.

"Here," she produced a piece of parchment out of her sleeve. The middle of it was covered with writing of nobody else, but Albus Dumbledore and looked exactly like the pieces of parchment all of the members of the Order of Phoenix had to read before being able to enter the headquarters. But these were destroyed on spot, so it wouldn't be possible for them to end up in wrong hands. Even Mung was careful about that. Or so said Sirius, but he had no reason to cover for the shady wizard. Not with something so big as keeping the safehouse actually safe.

"This is impossible!"

"Please, do remember what we have at our disposal," Suguro rolled his eyes.

"I might not be able to see these thing, but I can smell them just fine!"

"And by now you should be aware that the ghouls are not the only thing at our disposal."

The old Auror grunted something under his breath.

"Anyhow, everything is possible and that's it," Suguro decided to finish that topic. "That Dark Lord of yours is a whole other problem. Since I was actually able to exorcise him..."

"He's part of our business now, yes," Mamushi nodded. "But that you were aware of before you decided that getting kidnapped is a good idea."

"Originally I was planning on keeping an eye on their world through Harry," Suguro admitted in a matter of fact voice. "And ask him to contact someone reasonable for me, after I manage to gain enough information to have a vague idea what's exactly going on.

"Through Harry?" Sirius instantly stiffened.

Harry himself wanted to ask about that. Was the exorcist just using him, like the magical world seemed to be just to discard him without a second thought when he was done? It wouldn't be all too surprising, people were just like that, but still–

"Bad choice of words," Suguro grimaced slightly. "After such long contact with a spirit as Harry experienced, there's a possibility for another spirit to make appearance. I think somebody already explained it already, no?"

Harry nodded. Suguro did that himself, they day he exorcised Voldemort's spirit. Harry still felt uneasy about that one. To walking around with that thing stuck on his forehead... He actually had a nightmare or two of the wraith coming back, trying to force its way back into the scar.

"However yes, I was also interested in learning more about your world. Especially with crazies running around."

"Which shouldn't be your business in the first place," Alastor grunted. "Magical should stay in magical world."

"The Dark Wizard of yours," Mamushi said, her voice even colder than her expression. "He was exorcised, or not? That makes him our deal."

"Not to mention, you people tend to screw with brains of normal humans and we end up with the effects," Suguro snickered. "It's nice to at least know what is going on."

"Sounds like I need to have a word with some people," Alastor grimaced.

"...you do remember that you are retired, right?"

"That changes nothing," the ex-Auror shrugged. "If the people are sloppy enough for their job to be noticeable, then they need someone to set them straight."

The moment she finished her sentence was also the moment chosen by Albus Dumbledore to finally appear. Flames suddenly blossomed in the midair and upwards with a roar, just to take a shape of a man a short moment later.

The old wizard probably expected to appear in the middle of a battle or something like that. He looked very serious, which was quite a feat in clashing, colorful attire he was wearing. But all he saw, was a group of people sitting by the too big, ancient table, all of them very stiff and uncomfortable, while the untouched tea was getting cold.

"Woah!" Rin gasped, bending in an odd way to see better, miraculously not falling from his chair. "_What an entrance!_"

"_...you were the one to walk in there with the front doors, you know?_"

"_I was saving princesses, it doesn't count!_"

"_I think he was doing the same thing here,_" Suguro shook his head.

Considering how nervous the wizards were after the ghouls decided to show up, it wasn't that surprising to see the old wizard putting a show like that. Especially after hearing that something managed to break into their super secret hidey-hole. He also had to admit that showing up with sudden burst of fire in the middle of the room was impressive. Well, Kuro was more intimidating, but Ryuji was so used to the Cat Sithe, he barely even noticed the scary part anymore.

"Suguro-dono? Would you please return to using English?"

"But I don't speak English!" Rin protested.

"It's a perfect time to practice your skills then."

Rin moaned "So cold!"

Then he lay down on the wooden surface of the table with an annoyed moan, showing his tea aside. The movement was too sudden and a bit of the tea spilled over onto the place and the table itself, but that Rin choose to ignore.

"Well, I'm glad that this time nobody got hurt," the old wizard said with a small sigh. "Though I must ask, how our... guest managed to find this place?"

"Yeah, that must be quite a story," Moody muttered, producing the scrap of paper with the address.

"I have no idea how the paper was acquired in the first place," Mamushi said. "It was given to us."

"It was alluded to us that you have a very interesting set of friends," Moody said with an annoyed grimace that he wasn't even trying to hide. "But this... This is just ridiculous!"

Rin nudged Suguro under the ribs, demanding to hear the translation and after hearing it he just shrugged.

"Eh, you just have to get used to it!" he said loudly.

The wizards looked at each other, each one with an odd expression.

"So…" Sirius started slowly. "This time nobody is fighting with anyone, right?"

"I sure hope so," Suguro answered.

"Good," he exhaled with relief. "I think I still have bruises after the last one!"

He wasn't the only one who relaxed. Remus looked like a huge weight finally lifted from his shoulders and the old wizard definitely looked much less tense too. Actually, he looked like he was trying to hide his amusement over Rin's behavior and failed.

It was a really good thing that Okumura decided to show up and not anybody else, Ryuji decided. He couldn't even imagine how messy the whole situation would look like, if it was Izumo instead. Or Moriyama. The girl would definitely completely trash the place beyond any hope of repair, terrify the wizards beyond any reason and all that with a warm, sweet smile never leaving her face. The mental image made him shudder.

"Mind if I ask," the old wizard said, while sitting by the narrow side of the table, probably to keep an eye on both sides with ease. "How young Mr. Weasley is doing?"

"As far as I know, the kid should be in fine condition by now," Mamushi answered.

"That's good to hear," the man nodded. "And what about Mrs. Weasley?"

"No charm will come to her," once again it was Hojo who answered. "Especially now, when we've decided we're not enemies."

"That doesn't change the fact that they are still Merlin knows where," Moody snickered. "All we have is the word of yours and I'm not sure if that's even close to being enough."

"What then? Do you truly think that we were the party who send the ghouls?"

"Well, since nobody else knows how to find this place…"

"We already went through that, didn't we?" Suguro cut in, before Hojo decided she had enough and send her familiar after the grumpy wizard. "And the woman would be back as soon as it will be safe for Fred to leave the hospital."

"And you can guarantee that?" Alastor snickered.

"Since we already found a way to talk to each other," Ryuji shrugged, unable to keep the smile from creeping onto his face. Then he exhaled slowly. "That doesn't change that fact that our two words are now mixed together. You can't just ignore that or sweep it under the rug and expect that nothing else would even happen."

"After what I've already saw it would probably just eat the fucking carpet," Moody groaned. "But what do you want then?"

Ryuji exchanged looks with Mamushi. The woman merely glanced at him, before she, barely noticeable, nodded. Suguro smiled.

xxx

Hermione bit her thumb, looking at the doors. When the odd... guests arrived, freaking the adult wizards enough that they actually were not arguing against letting Harry join the whole conversation. Hermione considered discreetly sitting by the table too, but in the end, decided against it. Ron and Ginny and especially George needed her much more, even if for most of the time she felt like a third wheel.

She was sure that Harry would share whatever he was going to learn during the meeting with the rest of them. Maybe he would wait a bit with that in a little act of vengeance - and they deserved it - but in the end he would share the information.

It was hard enough for her, to not know what exactly was going on or if Fred was better now. For his family, it was definitely unbearable. Hermione couldn't even imagine, how hard it was for Mr. Weasley, who had to still go to work and act like nothing had happened at all. The Order of Phoenix was a secret that could land everyone in trouble if it ever come out.

Since the moment Fred disappeared, George was acting… off. He was still smiling and joking, but it was hard to not notice the pauses in his speech patter, like he was waiting for a punchline and it was never there. His laughter didn't sound genuine either. More like he was an actor in a middle of play, or something like that.

The most painful thing was to catch a glimpse of him, while he through nobody was looking at him. That sober, gloomy expression didn't fit on his face at all, turning him into a stranger.

Now George was sitting on the sofa in a room they used to do their homework or talk with Suguro about this odd, scary stuff. Ron was next to him, quiet and awkward, nervously glancing between his brother and Ginny, who just looked pissed and walked in circles around the room.

"I'm sure he's doing just fine," Hermione said quietly, though she had no idea what she was hoping for. They all really wanted to believe that nothing bad was going to happen, but the reality happened to be a very unmerciful thing. Especially since the last year, when the evil incarnated demonstrated that it was possible to cheat the death. Now it only got worse, because they learned that the Death Eaters were not the only thing to be afraid of.

"He didn't look fine," George said, not raising his head.

"Yeah, but he heard Suguro, he got the help he needed," she said softly. "And he's not alone either."

"That's not making it any easier, you know," Ron grunted. "You heard how Moody made it sound, like they are going to keep them as prisoners, or something!"

"They are not bad people," Hermione said. " It's all one, big misunderstanding, but they are straightening thing up right now. Everything is going to be fine."

"But Hermione!" Ron protested. "People are like All Flavored Beans. They come in all the flavors. Well, not really, but you know what I mean, right? Some of them are fine, but sometimes you just find the one that's really nasty, like that Umbridge woman from the Ministry, who wanted to throw Harry out of the school."

She nodded, quite surprised how deep he managed to go with this candy–related metaphor.

"You're right," Hermione said, sitting next to him. She let her hand rest on his shoulder, not doing anything besides that. "But… we all saw at least a glimpse of whatever these things were, right? I don't think a bad person would risk life fighting against something like that just to help others."

"Suguro's not evil, I'll give you that," Ginny shrugged. "But you really think they all are like him?"

"Well, they rushed here to save a friend, right? Not knowing much what they were going to face… kind of like Harry."

"I'm not sure…" Ginny muttered, eyeing the doors with a frown on her face.

"Did you… You've seen something?" Ron asked, looking at her. "I mean, in a way we don't because of whatever?"

"There's something about those two," she muttered, angrily brushing hair behind her ear. "I can't put my finger on it, but there's just something really off about them."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, that's what I'm telling you!" Ginny grit her teeth. "The guy is like… edgy. Too many edges on him. Sort of like the veela chick from Beauxbatons, but she was the other way around. "

George chuckled. "Those are supposed to fill at some point, sis."

"I'm not talking about boobs!" she huffed at him angrily. "And he's not worrying me too much. I mean, I don't think that Suguro guy would be so chubby with a nasty person."

"He got stick up his ass, I'll give you that," Ron nodded.

Hermione smacked him, just a little, and hissed something about language.

"The woman is what I don't get," Ginny continued. "There's something unpleasant about her. "

"She sure looks scary," George shrugged. "But that's not it, isn't it?"

It was not. While for whatever reason Ginny found herself wanting to trust the kidnapped exorcist, it was exactly the other way around with the woman. Who, as far as Ginny was able to understood was a member of the same temple as Suguro.

Ginny dropped heavily on the sofa next to her brothers, angrily staring at the old painting on the wall, her glare heavy enough to make the few people on them move out of the way, like they were expecting that she would burn holes in their canvas at any moment.

"We're going to ask Harry as soon as the meeting ends," Hermione declared. "I'm sure if we will need to know something more he could bug Suguro for some answers."

Ginny nodded. For whatever reason, the exorcist seemed to have a weak spot for Harry. She wasn't sure if either one of them was aware of it, but it was hard to not notice, when you were constantly hanging around them.

xxx

Joseph found himself hanging around instead of heading back home and doing anything useful. It could be because there was a pile of paperwork waiting for his return – because of the whole kidnapping situation his usual duties were simply not as important as solving the problem and getting the kid back. There was also a possibility that he stayed just to poke fun at Chavez. She was sometimes way too serious. Especially after she decided to climb to the very top of the British totem pole. Though that one could be related to many helpful people, who wanted her to take it easy, since she just returned from the motherly leave… Joseph knew all too well that Chavez was not a person who would just sit back and take things easy.

"Are you satisfied now?" Joseph asked with a small smirk, when she walked into the room, her flowery dress clashing horribly with a grumpy expression on her face.

"No," Marie hissed. "And you are perfectly aware why."

"This is a housewife and a teenager," Joseph pointed out.

"And both well trained in withholding vital information," she coldly cut in.

"What were you expecting?" Joseph shook his head. "Safety of their entire community could be endangered if somebody spilled the beans."

"Oh, yes," she rolled her eyes. "Entire community so very prone of messing with brains of other people, you said it yourself."

"Harsh, but true," he nodded. "But I hope..."

"You hope, that's the problem!" Marie groaned. "They kidnapped a kid that was under your protection and you do what?"

"What are you expecting me to do?"He asked, feeling the anger slowly rising. "Interrogate a teenager, while the kid is still healing from a ghoul attack?"

"Don't pull that card on me, O'Callaghann," Marie hissed through her teeth. "Don't you dare!"

"What even are you expecting to get out of those two, hm?" Joseph humorlessly snorted. "Something important, perhaps?"

"Their kind is having a secret war of their own and normal, innocent people are suffering because of that," Marie growled. "And they don't even care enough to warn people about it!"

So, it was personal, at least a little bit, Joseph decided. Chavez was one of the kids, barely in her teens, who were under his protection after Hell literally rose up and spilled over the world. Back then, nobody tried to warn normal people either. There wasn't even a way to do so, because the best reaction they could hope for after babbling about Satan would be a polite nod.  
He could understand that, to not want your kids to share a similar fate, because something once again was crawling out of the dark corner, dangerous and unknown.

"I don't plan to defend them," Joseph sighed. "I don't agree with what they are doing, but I don't think they agree with it either. For what we managed to gather, they all answer to a government of theirs."

"And that's another problem, how come they have a country inside an already existing country?"

"I really don't have answers for you," he shook his head. "And I want to wait at least a little bit before making any sort of decision."

"You were singing a different song just few days ago."

"A few days ago I had no idea what was going on."

"Yes, because now you got all the facts," she snickered. "Civilians or no, they know much more than we do. Whatever is going on, I don't want to jump into this situation unprepared."

xxx

Molly couldn't shake the uneasy feeling off, even with the knowledge there was no immediate danger to Fred anymore. Probably it had something to do with being confined to a small space.

It wasn't a cell or anything. Just a room, even cozy if a bit smaller than places she was used too.

There was a bed, a table and two chairs, small wardrobe stuffed into a corner by the window and even a bathroom; everything a person needed.

It was surprisingly easy to get used to the muggle side of how things worked too - it didn't took a lot of time to learn that you had to push a plastic switch on the wall nearby instead of just walking into a space filled with dim light. She had to admit, it wasn't that bad idea, the light charms were annoying with the constant need to be recasted in the whole house almost every other day.

With a heavy sigh, Molly sat on the bed. She would prefer to recast any sort of household spells at the Burrow, than just sit here, doing nothing.

She could try to run away; even without a wand a witch was still a witch and even if Molly wasn't proficient at casting wandlessly, she could at least try.

Sadly, it wouldn't lead to anything; as far as Molly understood, the Key she used to get help for her son was like a very powerful Portkey - able to snatch the user to any place it was locked onto. What would be the point of running away, if she didn't know what direction to run into. Not to mention how difficult it would be to find her way around some foreign place, where people spoke a complete different language... And there was Fred. Her poor boy still needed help and she could clearly see that the Muggles knew what they were doing.

So, waiting it was. Molly just hoped that she and Fred won't be used like some sort of leverage against the Order, or even the magical world as a whole. The consequences... she dreaded them greatly. The mere existence of the Order of Phoenix was a secret. If that came out, and in a situation like that, no less!

"You look worried," Molly jumped, completely surprised.

There was a woman standing in the doorway, with a crooked smile.

"W-when did you...?!"

She was one of the people that talked to her, right? Molly was so terrified back then, that she had trouble with recognizing the face. But the woman looked familiar.

"I've just entered," the woman - Marie, it was? - shrugged nonchalantly.

"Oh."

"I decided to show up and ask, if you need anything."

"And besides that?" Molly raised an eyebrow. "You don't seem to be low enough to serve as a maid."

"Point taken," Marie smiled brilliantly and sat down on one of the chairs. "I just wanted to talk."

"What about?" Molly frowned. "You already know what happened to Fred and that Suguro's alright..."

"Oh, nothing much," Marie said, lazily resting her chin on the palm of her hand. "I just wanted to know more about the place you came from."

"I can't name it, it's under protection," Molly responded instantly.

"Oh, not that," she slowly blinked. "The magical world."

"Why do you want to know more?" Molly smoothed her skirt. "It doesn't concern you!"

"Oh, on the contrary," Marie grinned. "You see, as far as I understand, you people use a lot of... morally questionable methods to stay in hiding."

"We just don't want to be bothered."

She said that before she had a time to really think about the answer, but wasn't it the right one? With magic all the machines muggles were building were not needed anymore; a lot of their problems would just cease to exist.

"And what do you mean by morally questionable?"

"We already learned that you are prone of manipulating mind and memories, just to prevent people from learning about you."

"But that doesn't charm anyone!" Molly protested.

"Oh?" Marie raised eyebrows. "Then would you let someone do that to your kid?"

"What? No! Why someone would even have a reason, he's magical-!"

"Ha!" Marie clapped her hands together. "Now, see, I don't want anyone to toy around brains of my kids either."

"But those are done only by people specialized in-" Molly stopped in the middle of explaining what the Obliviators were. Was she even supposed to talk about things like that?

The exorcist seemed to be aware of the possibilities that lied in magic. On the other hand, telling them everything about how the Ministry worked didn't seem like a good idea.

The wolfish smile on the exorcist woman face was a proof of that.

"So, you have even a structure to solve that problem, huh?" she mumbled. "That's interesting. The schoolbooks sadly are not mentioning anything about that... though these are just for kids."

"Schoolbooks?" Molly blinked.

"Ah, Suguro decided to borrow a few of these from his newest magical friend. Even made a notes, which is a lot of help," Marie explained. "After he disappeared we went through his stuff and found this and that."

That... wasn't too bad. Molly decided. Harry had only the books for the first four years and there was nothing that parents of the muggleborn hadn't seen.

"I'm really curious about how much of things in the history books are real," Marie continued. "Some of the things in other books doesn't seem to be very logical either. Like these parts about burning witches on the stakes."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, let's just say that in the rare occurrence when the inquisition got indeed to the burning people alive part, the so called witch wouldn't be in any shape to put two words together," Marie shrugged. "Not to mention that the fire is not the source of the death in most cases like that either."

"Why are you telling me such morbid things?"

"Because you teach your children to be ignorant."

"They don't need to be afraid of Muggles," Molly argued. "If we were, then-!"

"Then what?" Marie snickered. "Let's be generous and say there's about twenty thousands of you in the British Isles. Probably similar amount in the rest of the European countries, which gives you... a population of one city. Not even very big one."

Molly was silent. Because the numbers were much bigger than they were in the reality.

"I'm not saying that you're bad people," Marie continued in a soft voice. "at some point hiding probably made perfect sense. You just went too far and it's hard to find a way back."

Molly smiled bitterly. "I don't think many of the people would share your opinion."

"Ah, but you are starting to think about it," the exorcist smiled. "And that's how it starts."

She didn't explain what she meant by that and Molly couldn't help herself, but feel uneasy. There just was something definitely off about the lady exorcist and her switching between harsh and sweet tones wasn't helping.

Not long after Marie left, some other person - a very awkward young man who chuckled nervously and avoided eye-contact - brought her food and even showed her how that strange, black item called "TV" and introduced Molly to the bizarre world of soap opera. It was hard to stop looking at these; the people were acting so odd and unnatural, it was unbelievably fascinating. How one could even come up with so strange stories?

xxx

"Found something interesting?" Joseph knew it was a bit unfair and definitely more than just a little bit hypocritical of him, but he couldn't help himself. He was curious. She had the data he was interested in. It was hard to not use the situation, even if it was unfair.

That's why he was still in the small lobby, sipping and awful, thin coffee when Marie finally decided that she was done for today. She didn't look too surprised to see him, when she walked into the room to get her purse from the locker.

"Nothing we were not expecting, " Marie shrugged, apparently not minding doing the dirty word. "A tad of propaganda, a bit of the odd need to shield children from the horrors of real world, a really bad view on how science is supposed to work."

"So now you're done with questioning underage kids?" Joseph snickered. "Or are you going to continue bugging the magical brat?"

"Right now I have my own brats to bug," Marie brushed her long hair aside. "But don't think I won't be back."

"The world would surely end first," Joseph rolled his eyes. If there was a contest for a title of true workaholic, then Suguro would have stick to the consolation prize. Chavez was definitely beating him with ease, she and her strong need to climb on the very top of the totem pole just to show people what she was made of. It could kill her and Joseph was a little afraid that it will kill her.

"Really?" she raised eyebrows. "Aren't you worried?"

"I am," he admitted. "But I can't chew on my fingers or just rush in there and hope for the best."

"As far as I know somebody else did that for you," Marie snickered.

"You sure knows a lot."

"And you are aware of the fact that from the moment I was back in the game I was planning on becoming the man around here," Marie replied coldly.

"I never wanted to go very far and you know that to," Joseph shrugged.

"And that's what I don't understand!" Marie groaned. "You could be so much more!"

He could, of course. It would be a matter of formality, to go and pass an exam for another specialty or just demand a promotion. There was no reason for him to not get it, if not for the fact that he didn't want to. That was exactly what Chavez couldn't comprehend.

"Marie, I'm an old fart," Joseph chuckled under his breath. "And you pointed it yourself, I'm starting to slip. If you are looking for a competition, then I'm the wrong person."

She shook her head with a groan.

"You sure got the impression of annoying old man perfected!"

She turned on her heel and walked away, stomping on the floor hard with each step. She even closed the door with a loud thud, like she suddenly turned into a very frustrated teenager.

Joseph sighed into his awful coffee and took another sip. There was no reason to blame Chavez for freaking out. To suddenly discover existence of something like a whole new society and under her very own nose was probably a nasty shock for someone as proud as her. Everything that was going on in that new, odd community was making the situation even worse.

xxx

Usually when Kreacher was quiet, the blaster elf was making trouble in some of the many dark corner of the Grimmauld Place.

Since the elf hadn't shown up to spill his usual nonsense about dirty blood entering the house of Ancient and Noble family, Sirius found himself suspicious.

After all the excitement of the past days some nasty surprise, like infestation of a nasty, dark creature the little stinky bugger managed to put his claws on was the last thing they really needed. Sirius knew the elf well enough to expect him to dig something up, bugger was annoyingly resourceful when he wanted to be.

So, while the unusual guest who didn't quite understand the idea of knocking were occupied by other people, Sirius went for a little hunt of his own. Not that other member of the Order really cared where exactly he was, as long as he was in this blasted mansion.

Sirius had to admit, rushing back to England was pretty damn stupid thing to do, but he couldn't just bake in the sun, while Harry was on the same continent as the Dark Lord. still, since he was still an escaped convict, he couldn't exactly show his face anywhere and everyone on the Order knew that all too well and was treated mostly like a necessary evil. Though meeting each member - especially the Aurors - for the first time was an amusing experience.

Sirius checked the favorite hidey hole, but Kreacher wasn't there. And hasn't appeared, even after Sirius kicked the pile of random stuff the elfish hoarder managed to stuff in the tiny place.

With a small shrug, Sirius proceed to search the house. There was no house-elf under the bathroom sink on the first floor and he wasn't in the closed in one of the guest rooms the Order wasn't using. Since the hippogriff was occupying the bedroom of mother dearest, there was no way Kreacher crawled in there - the huge beast didn't like him much - Sirius ignored the room entirely and climber higher up.

Finally, he found Kreacher. The house-elf was in the dark corner of the attic, as far away from where all the people were as possible, curled into a ball and scratching at the wall, like he wanted to dig up a hole in the old wood and run away.

"You're weirder than usual," Sirius muttered, eyeing the creature with distaste.

Kreacher ignored him, still scratching at the wall, his eye wide-open and not blinking.

"If I wasn't all about not kicking a dog that's already down..." Sirius muttered.

Kreacher made a small noise and scratched at the wall a little bit more desperately. Even in the dim light Sirius was able to see the pale lines carved in the darkened wood.

"Uh... What exactly are you freaking about?" Sirius asked. He considered poking the elf with his shoe, but considering the state Kreacher was in, he would probably end up with bite wounds.

"Monsters!" the elf screeched. "Monsters in the house!"

Sirius blinked. That wasn't what he expected.

"Uh, the monsters were dealt with. Two days ago."

"No, no, no!" Kreacher shook his head with enough force that his ragged ears flapped around and smacked him in the face. "The monster walked into house, scary, scary! Blew up the doors, the monster did!"

Sirius blinked.

"That was just a cat, you know. A big one, but only a cat."

He was completely ignored, because Kreacher apparently preferred to continue freaking out over his imaginary monster.

With a sigh, Sirius decided to leave him alone. The old house-elf finally lost it and really, it wasn't too big of a surprise if Sirius was to be completely honest. Kreacher for a long time was a tad on the off side and apparently what was left of his brain left with the front doors.

He probably should thank the merry invaders, or something. He would buy flowers if not for the whole being a prison escapee issue.

He also wondered if there was any catalogue with the doors in it. The Grimmauld Place was in sudden need of something just like that. Even if the building was unplottable and hidden with Fidelius Charm to top the defenses up, it was still just weird to have only a barely standing front doors. Because the male invader actually picked them up and put back where they belonged, giggling awkwardly. And here Sirius was, thinking that there were no Muggles stranger than that Suguro guy.

xxx

After a talk that seemed to be as awkward for the both parties as it was long, they still hadn't decided what to do with this whole mess. The wizards were currently stirring among themselves, trying to make sense of all the new facts about the world and universe they currently learned. Meanwhile, the exorcists were about to deal with the results of the past weeks. Those were not pleasant either.

"You really should call your girlfriend," Mamushi pointed out. After several days of being kidnapped and then staying another few as an act of goodwill, some issues really needed to be dealt with. "And your boss. And your mother."

"Yeah," Suguro groaned. "She's going to kill me. And then O'Callaghann will bring me back just to kill me again. But I can't do that here."

"Why?" Mamushi asked, her gaze immediately wandering towards the group of magical people.

"My battery is dead," he explained. "Besides, the magic around - don't make that face at me, it's not my fault it is called magic - is doing something to the electronics. They pretty much refuse to work. Or can't get the connection for shit."

"Oh," Rin blinked. "That actually makes sense. After we're out of here you can borrow mine, I guess. The sooner we're done here, the better."

"I'm afraid it's not going to be that easy."

"What do you mean?" Mamushi frowned.

Suguro tapped his cheek with obvious annoyance, trying to find a way to explain what was so troublesome about the whole situation.

"You have noticed that this building was hidden in an odd way, right?"

Mamushi nodded. "If it is about us being unable to said the address of this place out loud-"

"Yes, that!" he quickly cut in. "I'm not sure if I can find my way back. That's one of the reason why I never tried to go out for awhile. There's also the fact that I don't want to leave. Not now at least."

"What do you mean, you don't want to leave?" Mamushi hissed. "Did they actually succeed at screwing up your mind? Or it's just–"

"Look," he cut in with a resigned sigh.

"If you are going to say something about how you can't just leave them after a kid was wounded…" she warned him.

"Nah, not that," Suguro shook his head. "As far as I know, the group they are fighting with is rather prone to attack non–magical people. Sometimes just for kicks. And the family that resided here before the dog guy decided to turn it into secret headquarters was on the nasty side of things. The library is still filled–"

"Ah!" Rin smacked himself in the forehead. "So you're just on your cute little nerd–spree!"

"…shouldn't it be geek–spree?"

"Hell if I know," Rin shrugged.

Suguro shook his head. "Seriously, though. Many of these spells can be mistook for some nasty spirit having a field day. I would hate to get fatalities only because we currently know nothing about how the magicals can hurt us."

Mamushi wanted to groan. To call him an idiot and then drag him all the way home by the ear. Or just to scream at him on this very spot, but she swallowed all the nasty words. While she didn't like him of all people to do the job, she also knew it was important to learn as much as possible. Suguro was currently the best man for the job. He already gained at least a bit of trust and if needed, could play on their feelings too.

"Fine," Mamushi pinched the bridge of her nose. "But as soon as we find a way around the communication program, someone else is going to take the job. Knowledge is useless if you don't share it. "

Suguro had memory good enough to memorize most of the stuff and was clever enough to at least be able to guess how it all was supposed to work. Later on, he would be capable of dealing with the data gathered by other people and teach it to the other, while safe and sound, like he was supposed to be in the first place.

"I am going to tell those people that you require time to contact your family," she said. "After that, I will use the Key and check on the wounded kid and report in your place. If there's something you want to add, now is the time."

Suguro shook his head and let Mamushi do what she decided was best. While she wasn't an exorcist for over six years now, she still was working with them. Nobody protested too much, since such unofficial asset could be useful in some situations. Many of them, not to pretty.

Ryuji sighed.

"She knows what she's doing," Rin said under his breath, noticing the change of mood.

"That's exactly what worries me," Suguro answered. He was lazily observing the group of wizards interacting witch each other, hands crossed on his chest, fingers tapping a melody of some pop–song that got stuck in his head awhile ago.

Harry disappeared in one of the rooms, probably to tell rest of the kids about what was going on and how they all failed to do anything at all; Suguro couldn't quite wrap his mind around why exactly these people were even wasting energy on trying to keep the teenagers oblivious to what was going on. Meanwhile, Moody and the almighty boss of all the wizards were arguing quietly, while a young woman with bright colored hair was observing them, odd fascination clearly visible on her face. All that missed from the picture, was a big bowl of popcorn. Especially after the dog–wizard returned and sat next to her, clearly commenting something right into her ear.

"Here," Rin forced his phone into Ryuji's hands. "The battery is full, so you can blab all the time you want."

"Thanks," he smiled, pocketing the phone. "I'll owe you, I guess."

Rin rolled his eyes. "I just hope you're not talking money now."

"Only partially," Suguro admitted with a small shrug, then frowned. "I should probably go there before she decide to send snakes after these people."

"Rright," Rin chuckled. "Better hurry. She looks pretty annoyed."

That she did indeed. Though Suguro hoped that in the last few years summoning naga's was not her first response to troublesome situations anymore.

"I assure you..." Dumbledore started, probably trying to explain something, but stopped, when Mamushi raised her hand. Ryuji always wanted to learn how she was doing that, silencing people with a single gesture, not even trying very hard to do so. Looked like the trick worked perfectly well on the wizards, too.

"I don't care what you can tell me," Mamushi smiled sweetly. "You see, we are aware that your kind doesn't shy from modifying memory of non-magical people."

Moody frowned. "Aren't you guys supposed to be immune?"

"Doesn't mean you couldn't find a way around it, keeping a prisoner for such long time."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Sirius groaned. "Just let's go on a stroll back and forth! It's not like we're talking about a trip to freaking America!"

It was hard to not agree with him. Even harder to find a counterargument, but some people just needed to have the last word. Or so it seemed.

"You do remember that you will be lucky if they only kill you on sight, right?" Moody snickered.

Sirius dropped back on the sofa with an angry grunt, with his arms tightly wrapped around his torso.

"I can go with him!" Tonks chirped happily.

Ryuji looked at her.

"Weren't you guys concerned about not catching an eye of the wrong people?" he asked carefully. "No offense, but..."

"Ah, no worries!" The young woman chuckled. "I can change thing or two about myself!"

With a playful wink, she started doing just that. Her bright pink hair darkened and grew. It looked almost like something taken out of a documentary show, that kind about growing and evolving. It was disconnecting, to see it in real life and not on the TV screen.

"...That's actually helpful," Suguro mumbled, as soon as he managed to put himself back together.

"I wanna go with you!" Sirius moaned.

"Aren't you supposed to sit put?" Moody hissed at him. "They are looking for you all around the place!"

"They are looking for a man, not a dog," Sirius responded with a shrug. "Nobody knows..."

"Some of them were at the same school as you, you dolt," Alastor hissed. "Do you really want to risk it?"

"Well, even if they are looking for a big, black dog, they are looking for one that hangs around wizards, right?" Sirius shrugged. "Muggles can own a dog if they want to. Nobody is going to care."

Moody grunted something under his nose, but when he looked back at Suguro, he had a crooked smile plastered on his scarred face.

"The question is," he started, his tone suspiciously serious. "What color of collar would you prefer?"

Sirius yelped, only now realizing what he just stepped into.

xxx

"Those clothes are oddly comfortable," Tonks said, when they sat on one of the benches. She magicked her stuff to look like things she saw on the photos. Rin showed his phone right into her face and then spend quite a lot of time helping and commenting, just to make her look right. Tonks ended up with a bit over the top punk-rock image, but didn't seem to awkward in clothes so far from what she was familiar with. On the other hand, the woman was constantly changing everything about herself, gender and body-mass included, so things like that probably were not an issue at all. Suguro still had trouble with wrapping his mind around that piece of magic.

"I had no idea... people are seriously buying stuff when it is so ragged?" Tonks asked, pulling at one of the many holes in her jeans.

"Sometimes you're paying mostly for the stylization," Suguro chuckled. Then eyes the third person in the party. "...are you sure he's fine?"

"He just hadn't been outside. You know, being who he is," she shrugged.

The big black dog was currently running in circles a few meters away, galloping on the slightly yellowish grass like there was no tomorrow. Ryuji wasn't sure if he was disturbed, knowing it was a guy with a bright collar on his neck that was running around like crazy, or just baffled by how quickly Sirius managed to forget all about his new leash.

"That doesn't answer my question, you know."

Tonks winkled her nose. "Don't you have a phonecall to make?"

"I'm procrastinating," he admitted without an ounce of shame. "And he's looking like he's having fun."

Sirius wasn't the only one. After getting stuck for so long in the dark, gloomy mansion that somehow managed to be pretty cold in the middle of annoyingly hot summer, being back on the outside felt good. Even with the sun mercilessly trying to bake him alive.

Right now, even sunburns were welcome. Suguro was starved for fresh air and he was unable to resist the temptation of staying on the outside as long as possible. Hell, if he could he would squeeze a Key straight home out of Mephisto, just to waste a whole day in the fields and forest around the abandoned temple. It was nice during this time of a year, lots and lots of wild trees were bearing fruits, small and more sour than sweet.

"You want me to go away for a moment?"

"And since when are you able to understand Japanese?"

Tonks smacked herself on the forehead. Of course. Of all things to forget, her brain managed somehow skip over the fact that Suguro wasn't exactly from around here.  
Still, right now she looked somewhat Asian, just to fit the image they were trying to create, so she shifted to the other side of the bench. She just hoped the day wasn't going to end up with her with sunburns. Methamorphomagi or no, her natural skin color was on the fair side.

* * *

**A/N: ** This chapter. Holy shit, this chapter. If not for Rin, I would just have them all duke it out. Defeat Means Friendship! is one of my favorite tropes. And it worked once before... But since Rin is ridiculously overpowered, the characters had to act like adults. For the sake of balance, mostly.

Another holy shit goes for the reviews - I was expecting a bit more, since a main character was making a guest appearance, but... holy shit, I wasn' expecting that many. It was slightly frightening, to see the number growing every time I refreshed the page... ^^'

I was fully expecting to be done with the Grimmauld around this chapter - but because of all that reason and logic floating around... most of the next chapter was actually this chapter in the first draft. But that's a good news, Rin is going to stick around some more.

Useless trivia time - the princess joke. It was bad, I know. But that's the actual reason why I started writing this story in the first place. Me and common sense - we never get along too well.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**  
**Prophecies and Knights**

Making friends with your very own kidnappers. Mamushi huffed with irritation. She wanted to smack the brat over his dumb, dyed head. Only, Suguro wasn't a kid anymore and smacking him over the head had to involve way too much jumping for her liking. After dealing with this whole situation she probably would see to his training. After such a long time, Suguro surely became somewhat rusty, since melee weapons never were his first choice.

"At least he's fine," Joseph said with a sigh. The witch said the same thing, but it was entirely different thing to hear the good news from someone trustworthy.

"Suguro-dono should soon enough make a call to confirm his status," Mamushi continued.

"And that would be what, exactly?" Marie snickered. "Officially admitting that he waltzed right in the middle of a civil war?"

"Now at least we are aware that there is a war," Joseph said, fighting off the need to massage his temples. Discovering a whole new world was one thing, but bumping into it when it was in the middle of a serious internal conflict was a whole other issue. Not to mention, now they had to go back through a huge pile of archives, looking for a traces of magic and doing lots and lots of guesswork. Just how many of their decision were influenced by magical people trying to start hidden? How many decision of politicians and important public figures were influenced by a little, not so innocent charm? It was one huge headache awaiting.

"At least it seems to be a problem only on the British Isles," Mamushi said with a small shrug.

"Only?" Marie grunted.

"It definitely could be much more difficult if the entire... race, for the lack of better word, was at war, not only this small group of people."

They seriously needed a better dictionary or at least another language that had more than one word for "people", because they happened to come in more than one flavor. And it was getting troublesome linguistically.

"Yes, considering the numbers it's more like small city gang-war than anything else," Joseph sighed. "But considering they have unknown powers..."

He shook his head again. The report was already half-way written, followed by bits and chunks of another, but he couldn't quite get it to not sound ridiculous. Magic and wizards, and spells and Dark Lords… They could at least invent important titles that didn't sound stupid, but no. Supreme Mungwump it was, closely followed by bad French.

"That's the reason why Suguro-dono decided to stick around their group for a little longer," Mamushi continued. "And I do agree, even if I don't really agree with him being the person to do it."

"They already know him," Joseph pointed out. "That makes the whole situation a little bit easier to handle. Besides, Suguro is not prone to charge head on into trouble without a plan."

Mamushi rolled her eyes. "Unless he does. I hope to find a better way of communication. Abusing the Keys is hardly a good option."

"As far as I understood, the electronics doesn't work too well around magic," Marie grimaced. "And I sure as Hell don't want to working using methods I can't fully understand."

"We will find something."

"Right now, Suguro-dono is gaining as much intel as it is possible. Apparently, his new friends had a base filled with a rather interesting sort of books," the Japanese woman continued her report. Well, it wasn't actually her report. In the book, her name was not going to show up at all, switched to something else. Joseph couldn't quite grasp the controversy around the ex–exorcist, but it wasn't time nor place to ask questions. She was doing shady work and the kid trusted her with the shady work. So it was enough for him. Temporary.

Marie brushed her hair aside, her movement startling Joseph back into paying attention to the conversation. "We already have some of those."

"Schoolbooks," Mamushi corrected. "They don't have nothing on a stuff he managed to put his hands on. It would help with at least recognizing the damage."

"At least…" Joseph muttered under his breath. A grim thought, it was, to not know what you are facing and only hope that the enemy was lazy enough to not put a lot of effort in hurting the innocent. He felt the sudden need to flip the table. Or do something as stupid.

Bloody Blue Night! It definitely hurt the True Cross Order in many more ways than just reducing their numbers in a single moment to almost nothing; the flames that swallowed the bodies were as hungry as it was to be expected and devoured much more. Precious books and scrolls with irreplaceable data, artifacts of the old times – all gone. Even the archives deep underground were not left unscratched. Humans could do a nuke–proof bunker alright, but these were definitely not Satan–proof.

"Because of the new source of information and usefulness of the alliance, it would be a good idea to let the woman and the boy go," Mamushi finished. "They are of no use to us anymore."

"You just want to let them go?" Marie shook her head. "Just like that?"

"I was pretty sure they were not our prisoners," Joseph muttered.

"A conflict with an enemy we knows nothing about is definitely not desirable," Mamushi stated coldly. "Showing a little bit of trust might help us in the long run, especially since these people are interested with fighting along with us."

Marie definitely wanted to argue some more, but then the phone finally rang, startling them all off their chairs and then there were things to do.

xxx

"Can we repeat that?"

"Aren't you tired?" Tonks asked, arching one eyebrow at him. All the time they spend in the park, Sirius spend on moving around. Mostly chasing his own tail, some crazy bugs that decided the hot weather was ideal time to fly around or just jumping from one place to another. She was sure that he at least one managed to trash face–first into a tree, too.

"Yes!" he answered happily. "I want to do that again!"

"I think you just were a dog for faar too long, cousin," she said, shaking her head.

Tonks herself felt somewhat sticky, because beauty charms or not, it was hot on the outside. Her skin was a bit tingly too. She would probably end up with sunburns in weird shapes. It was always hard to tell what was wrong with her skin, because of the whole shape shifting business.

"What, you discovered something new about yourself?" Suguro snickered, gesturing towards his neck. There was still a leash dangling from a collar on Sirius' neck.

"What, you need to pick on someone because your girl was screaming at you for over ten minutes?" The wizard parroted the tone of his voice with admirable precision. It was fully deserved, too.

"Good one," Suguro admitted. "But now can you take it off. And go to the kitchen, bug Rin for some lemonade or something."

The wizard blinked, gaping at him for a short moment, then he returned to wrestling with the collar. It was hard to undo when he couldn't see what exactly he was doing.

"Though the jokes about you being a mother hen were just jokes."

Suguro pouted. "I don't want to end up dragging you only because you managed to over exercise yourself."

"There is that funny thing called magic, you know," Sirius commented, then yawned, not carrying about covering his mouth at all. "But eh, you might be right. I'm bad at keeping that sort of stuff reasonable."

Tonks giggled and Ryuji decided to leave it without any further commentary. Harry very vaguely mentioned his Godfather, but it was enough – especially after observing the guy for the past few days – to get the idea that Black was apeshit crazy. And Apeshit, Suguro understood. Rin was his friend, after all.

Instead, Ryuji looked around, counting all the magicians in the building. It became somewhat a habit of his, during the time of captivity. The hobo wasn't there, as usual; the wizards didn't seem to be too fond of the shady type that had a tendency to steal all the silverware he could stuff in his pockets. The werewolf, same as most of the wizards with actual jobs were not in the building either, excluding the shady and cranky Snape, who was doing his own staring from one of the dark corners with a sour look on his face. Suguro was pretty sure that it was his default expression.

Oddly enough, a person who wasn't in habit of showing up too often in the building actually was present. Blinding with a nasty fashion sense, too. Wherever Dumbledore was finding these clothes, the tailor definitely was mad like a hatter. Or was a hatter. Or the old wizard was just magicking his clothes to look as painful as it was humanly possible.

Suguro shuddered, forcing himself to ignore the fashion disaster and concentrated on observing what the old man was actually doing here.

Dumbledore himself, had a bad day. Week. Or even weeks, but also he knew very well which colors were capable of making a person looking fresh and healthy. He may have gone too far this time, but the experience said that horrendous details always were catching the eye of the observer and things that were supposed to be hidden, stayed hidden. Albus definitely did not need people worrying about his lack of sleep or other silly things like that.

What he needed, though… Albus needed to talk to Harry. He was batting the idea since the silly boy decided to stand against the dark lord in his very first year at Hogwarts no less and waltzed right in the middle of Dumbledore's trap. However Harry was just a child then and he didn't look too different now either. In the eyes of the old man everyone else seemed to be too young for learning of the things looming in the shadows. It was an unfair thing to do, to withhold the information about his destiny, but Albus couldn't force himself to tell the whole truth. Not after the Basilisk incident confirmed his worst fears. A chunk of Tom's soul attached itself to Harry and no magic could break the connection.

Then the young exorcist showed up and somewhat broke the reality. Or what Albus took for the reality. It forced him to rewrote many of his plans, but in all his years, Albus was never so happy to throw everything out of the window just to start from the scraps. Now the plans were all planned and he was all out of excuses. It was time to talk to the boy.

"Harry," Dumbledore said with a deep sigh. "If you truly wish to lean the answers, then follow me. I'm ready to explain. But be warned, some of the things I'm going to tell you... They are dangerous, Harry. Gravely dangerous to anybody who is going to find out anything at all about them."

"So," Harry said slowly with a frown on his face. "I'm not supposed to tell my friends, right?"

"I'm afraid so, Harry," the Headmaster nodded. "There are ways to seek through somebody's mind."

"And Voldemort knows how to do it," Harry finished for him.

"Indeed," Dumbledore sighed. "But many of his servants are capable of doing so too. Some of them capable enough to get a glimpse without the victim even noticing that something is wrong."

Leglimency was a scary branch of magic. In a hands of fool, it could break a human mind with ease. In a hand of intelligent man – the entire world could snap in a single moment.

"Well," Harry said after a short moment. "I'm already a target, aren't I? I just want to know why. I need to."

"Are you certain of that, Albus?" Snape was suddenly behind Harry, making the poor boy jump in surprise. He looked at the boy with a sneer, while Harry seemed to be forcing himself to not say certain things to Severus, trying hard to act like an adult who was ready to get the answers.

"This boy has a nasty tendency of getting himself in the trouble no matter what is he doing," Severus continued. "Merlin knows what the brat would do–"

"I believe, he deserves to know," Dumbledore said carefully. "He needs to at least know why he is the target, don't you think?"

Severus just huffed angrily, certainly dissatisfied with the decision.

"Can Suguro go with me?" Harry asked, his gaze wandering between the old wizard and the exorcist.

Dumbledore hadn't noticed when the young man returned from his stroll in the park, but Albus himself definitely wasn't unnoticed. Now he could feel the weight of his gaze upon his shoulder. If there was even a staring contest somewhere nearby, Severus wasn't the definite winner.

"This is supposed to be a very private conversation, Potter," Snape cut in with his usual sneer, grimacing, like he just tasted something sour. "That means you are supposed to keep these things secret from anyone."

"I know!" Harry grunted. "But you said it yourself, you can't get into his brain, right? And I don't want to run after Headmaster every five minutes, because I forgot to ask some important question!"

"And you believe others to remember such things for you?"

"Well, he is much better of picking stuff apart than I am," Harry shrugged. He was trying to think about clear blue skies, or blue water, or blue, peaceful something. He didn't want to give the nasty teacher the satisfaction and blow up, right before the man he was trying to prove that he indeed was to be treated like an adult, not as a child that needed to be sheltered.

Albus decided, that Harry's arguments were actually of the decent sort. The exorcist was smart and insightful and apparently he knew things Dumbledore himself was not aware of. Besides, he seemed to be fond of Harry. So he let the boy go and drag his new friend towards them.

"Well," Snape slightly raised eyebrows. "I must agree with you, boy. You definitely need somebody to do the thinking for you."

Suguro snorted.

"Sorry," he said, still chuckling. "But you seriously should rethink your life choices. You would be brilliant in a cabaret."

Dumbledore simply looked away, his fingers smoothing his beard. It was a nice way to hide the amusement. Harry had more trouble with it, considering how his face reddened while he was forcing himself to not laugh out loud.

"This wasn't even a very good joke," Snape finally commented.

"I agree," Ryuji nodded. "But we already covered that you wizards are weird."

"So," Dumbledore said, with something twinkling in his eyes. "What do you think about joining us?"

"I would like to hear what you have to say," Suguro shrugged. Then his eyes darted towards Snape, who clearly wasn't following the small group. "You're not going?"

"I can tell the difference between what I need to know and what I'm not supposed to know," the wizard bared his teeth in humorless smile. "A very useful skill to obtain, but I'm afraid some of us are a lost cause."

The man just had to have the last world, didn't he?  
There wasn't any trouble in finding an empty room in this ancient house, so the three of them settled someplace rather quickly. Ryuji only vaguely remembered it; he had no business in hanging around in the study of late Lord Black, especially since up until yesterday it was also a place filled with many trinkets filled with power he had no way of countering. It would be a quite dumb thing to do, to just wanted in there and get busted, because something decided to explode into his face. Especially since while he wasn't a hostage anymore, he still wasn't supposed to just wander around snooping among the evil books of doom.

Suguro grimaced, when Dumbledore pulled out his wand.

"Could you please explain what are you going to do before you actually do it?"

"Oh," Dumbledore blinked. "My bad. But I assure you that I'm not going to hurt anyone, I assure you."

"It's not that," Ryuji grimaced. "I just would like to know what to expect."

Dumbledore nodded. "I'm going to cast a spell that will provide us with as much privacy as we need," he said. "No one is going to be able to listen in on our conversation. All he would hear is going to be a strange buzz, even if he decide to stand right next to us."

"Fancy," Suguro raised eyebrows. "And useful too."

"Could you teach me how to do it?" Harry almost jumped with enthusiasm.

"I might show it to you," Dumbledore sighed. "But I' afraid, that for the further instruction you will need to ask somebody else."

"Oh," Harry's shoulders slumbered slightly. "I guess that makes sense. You have a lot of work to do... Does Sirius know the spell?"

"He should," Dumbledore nodded in approval.

Then he casted it, with a discreet movement of his wrist.

Suguro shuddered.

"What?" Harry looked at him curiously.

"It's like somebody painted the room in aquarelles and then tossed a bucket of water at it. A very dirty water, it's sort of brownish," he grimaced then looked between Harry and the Headmaster. "You can't see it, can you?"

They both shook their heads.

"Well, what the hell," he shrugged. "It just looks weird."

Albus was tempted to ask for something more, because the ability to see the effect of the spells was a truly fascinating thing – especially demonstrated by a Muggle –, but now was not the right time. He sat down in one of the chairs by the table and gestured for them to do the same. The Pensieve was already waiting for them, standing on the table and filling the air above with a subtle, silver light.

Suguro chosen the place right in front of him on the other side of the table, his arms resting on the wooden surface and Harry decided to stuck close to the exorcist.  
It was understandable, Dumbledore decided. After all, that young man was the only one who treated the boy like an actual adult. Or maybe because he was barely an adult himself.

"So," Harry started impatiently. "Are you going to tell us what really is going on? Why Voldemort suddenly decided that killing babies is the way to go?"

Dumbledore took deep breath and started talking. It was like drinking a Pepper–Up: the sooner you're done with it, the sooner you're done with it and can forget about the most unpleasant part of the whole experience.

Suguro hummed, tapping his lower mouth, deep in thoughts.

"Can you repeat the whole prophecy once again?"

Dumbledore nodded and waved his wand over the Pensieve so the ghostly image of Trelawney replayed, just like a video. When she finished, there was a heavy moment of silence.

"I would really like to call you a dumbass," the exorcist finally said. "But you are not stupid, are you?"

"What have you in mind?"

"First of all... what usually you people do when they bump into a prophecy?"

Dumbledore closed his eyes, a muscle in the corner of his mouth twitched little, like he was trying really hard to force the smile away.

"I see, you are able to point the most dangerous part straight away," the wizard say. "Usually, the memory of prophecy is isolated in an object charmed specifically so only the one's the prophecy is about could access it. They are stored deep under the Ministry of Magic, guarded by the Unspeakables."

"And what with the Seer? And the people that saw or heard something by accident?"

"These things don't happen too often. But when they do, the Unspeakables send somebody to Obliviate the memory out of everybody's mind."

"So... kind of like storing some toxic waste?" Suguro guessed. "That actually makes a lot of sense."

"Prophecies never work like we expected them too," Dumbledore agreed with a heavy sigh. "Nor they are easy to understand. And a fool who try to oppose them, after hearing even a part..."

Harry blinked.

"Hey, wait!" he waved his hand, like he was in the classroom. "If these things are so guarded, then... how come there is one about me and people know it?"

"Good question, Harry," Dumbledore nodded. "And I must sadly admit, that was my fault. After fighting Voldemort of twenty years, the war seemed to be going nowhere. We were merely reacting to the attacks, but nothing more."

"So... after you the prophecy suddenly happened in front of you, you decided that you lucked out, am I right?" Suguro ran fingers through his hair. "You decided that with using the prophecy, you will be able to set up a trap for the so called Dark Lord."

"That I did," Dumbledore nodded.

"But to set something like that up, you had to... that Death Eater who listened in on the Prophecy..." Harry gasped. "You let him just go away? So Voldemort could hear the thing and start doing... things?"

"It's not like he pointed finger at your family," Suguro said, before Harry managed to find the right words. "Actually, this Prophecy could be interpreted in a many different ways. Even pointing the right time is wacky."

"But it clearly says that the end of seventh month!" Harry protested.

"Which calendar?" Ryuji smirked. "Because for all I know, it could point to the seventh month, counting from the time where the prophecy was made. Or it could be connected to the moon calendar, each month got only twenty eight days instead of thirty. So it would really be the middle of July for example. And it still could use Aztec calendar for example, the end of seventh month there happens to be in the middle of June."

"But... it ended up being about me, right?"

"I think," Suguro said slowly. "That Headmaster was trying to trick his enemy into choosing something that would give the good guys an upper hand."

"Humor me and explain it further?" Dumbledore asked, his eyes not leaving the exorcist even for a moment.

"The Order of Phoenix existed since the first war with Voldemort," Suguro shrugged. "My bet is, you created it after hearing the prophecy – or at least officially called it a thing –, trying to use the nearest date that could be covered by the prophecy."

"You... wanted Voldemort to choose the whole Order instead of one person?" Harry gasped, realizing where Suguro was going.

"The Order was not created from gathering random people either," Suguro continued. I guess you contacted as many people who opposed Voldemort as you knew about at the time."

"The group was supposed to protect each other as much as fight the Death Eaters," Dumbledore explained. "They all were the targets, even if only of the Voldemort's supporters. "

"And they could have babies too?"

"Are you familiar with the expression "the man died and a hero was born?", Harry?" Suguro asked, looking at him with his head tilted to the side.

"Uh..." he thought for a minute. "I guess I heard it once... In one of Dudley's games, I think."

Suguro grimaced.

"Good, enough, I think. Anyhow, the phrase is showing up in mythology. And mythology is pretty close when it comes to prophecies, am I right?"

"So..." Harry frowned. "You were keeping an eye on people that went through something bad too?"

"And the muggleborn children, who were about to enter a whole new life at Hogwarts," Dumbledore nodded.

"But he choose a baby."

Dumbledore sighed. "I counted too much at Tom being proud. I was sure that choosing a baby as his opponent was much beneath somebody like him."

"But he was more clever than you expected and dumbed the whole thing down," Suguro finished. "Your whole plan crashed and burned and you were left with a small baby and a prophecy already forcing the world to head in the certain direction."

"Yes," the Headmaster said shortly.

Harry bit his lip, trying to decide, what he was feeling about the whole situation. He felt... cheated out of something that could be a normal life with normal parents. On the other hand, he could hardly even imagine living with a danger like that for over twenty years. Something, anything had to be done. And it even worked. Voldemort was banished, at least for a little while, letting the magical Britain to breathe for a moment and rebuild itself.

"After Harry was chosen, you tried to give him a childhood," Suguro continued. "But keeping people in dark is never a good option. At some point they will learn what you were trying keep hidden and then they will be royally pissed."

"There is one other thing," Dumbledore sighed. "Well, there was one other thing."

"You're talking about the piece of Voldemort in my head, right?"

"Remember your visions, Harry? Those during the fourth year?" when he nodded, Dumbledore continued. "I was afraid that your mind was somehow connected to his. And that he could caught a glimpse of your mind the same way you were looking into his."

"Oh," Harry blinked. "Oh! Then you didn't want to tell me that you know about the connection, because you didn't want Voldemort to know that you know..."

He shook his head. The sentence was getting more and more messed up.

"What I don't get, is how the guy managed to leave chunks of his fucking soul left and right," Suguro said, running fingers through his hair. "This is… I don't even have right words for it."

Dumbledore sighed.

"There's a certain dark object…" he started.

xxx

Sometime after Dumbledore, Potter and their guest disappeared behind the doors, Lupin decided it was the right moment to show up. He looked at them with a confused expression, but soon enough, Black explained to him what exactly was going on. They continued to wait. The two ex-marauders started to exchanging looks after awhile, each time more and more worried.

Severus himself felt intrigued. He knew the Potter brat pretty well and he expected to hear screaming after the first five minutes. But they were sitting in there for what appeared to be an hour and it was still quiet.

Well, at least the exorcist seemed to have some control over the boy. Besides being a very bad influence when it came to the language.

After another fifteen minutes, the doors finally cracked open. Potter hurried away, not even stopping to exchange words with his Godfather or the wolf. The exorcist followed in much slower pace. Severus felt his gaze stopping for a short, barely noticeable moment at him.

Then the young man smiled slightly and followed Potter, without a word. Lupin and Black looked at each other, shrugged, then stood up and also walked away, without even a snide remark.

Snape frowned. He didn't like that smirk on the exorcist's face at all. Just what they were talking about? Dumbledore surely wasn't mad enough to tell them anything that would endanger his only spy among the Death Eaters. But he still felt uncomfortable

"So?" Severus asked lazily, when Dumbledore was passing by him.

"What are you referring to, my friend?"

"The Muggle brat."

Dumbledore was silent for a moment.

"I'm not sure," he finally said. "If we're supposed to be happy or devastated that he has no magic."

"And now I'm starting to doubt that I really need to know that," Snape grimaced.

"He picked apart the prophecy and then explained my plan."

The potion master groaned.

"Now I'm going to obliviate myself. I'm seriously tempted to just throw that foreigner out of my brain."

"Just make copies before you do that," Dumbledore chuckled. "The knowledge might come useful."

"To whom exactly is what I fear."

"Are you suggesting that Tom would be willing to try and use Muggles?"

"I'm suggesting that he had his own agenda," Snape sneered. "Why else getting mixed up in our war after being kidnapped? By all means, any sane person would try to move as far away as possible, just to not get mixed into this madness again."

"I do agree," Dumbledore slowly nodded. "His argument was that since the piece of Voldemort was defeated by an exorcism, he counts as a very dangerous spirit."

"So it is his job to be a hero?" Severus snorted. "Don't tell me you believe it."

"I sincerely doubt that he was lying. He merely skipped the other reason."

"Which is?"

"Oh, he once mentioned that he was send to the British Isles by the means of political struggle of some sort."

"Are you trying to tell me that he is going to forge an alliance and fight against one of the most powerful Dark Wizards because it is going to give him an upper hand? Risking his life like that, just for dumb little thing? He's not going to take over the world even if he decide to wave around that silly alliance of ours."

It was a fair point, Dumbledore decided later on, when he was alone in his study, creating copies of the newest events so he could rewatch them in the future with a clear mind. Suguro was a good, driven person, but he was also intelligent enough to recognize the risks. Just what it was that he wanted to gain?

xxx

The next day, Molly Weasley and her son returned to the Grimmauld Place. It was a touching, teary reunion, with a lot of hugging, sweet–talking. It was also clearly a family thing, hence Ryuji was currently in the kitchen with Rin. Who managed to freak the hell out of wizards, by dethroning Molly and then throwing her out of her kingdom.

"But I have to…!" the woman tried to argue. "Dinner!"

"Go sit with your family," Rin ordered. She was still trying to ignore his orders, so he just picked her up and then carried her all the way to the middle of the living room.

"Stay," he ordered once again.

She was too shocked to try and dart towards the kitchen again, so it counted as a victory.

Another person crept into the kitchen, searching a refugee from the overly sweet and teary family thing, carefully lurking from behind the cupboard like she was expecting to see something scary to go on.

Rin was happily checking the cupboards, in search for cooking utensils and food items, handing many of the packages to Suguro, who, while wearing expression of absolute boredom, was translating the labels.

"You need any help, or something?" Hermione asked, feeling a bit awkward. She didn't want to get in the way of the Weasley family, not right now. This was their moment and they definitely deserved to have all the time they needed to spend as a family. She knew that they wouldn't mind her hanging around, but no matter how close friend, in the end she was she was still an outsider.

The problem was, she was an outsider in the kitchen too. Hermione always could find herself a lonely corner and spend some quality time with her books, Merlin knows that with the OWLs coming she definitely should start rereading some of the material, but that didn't feel right.

"Uh, sure?" Rin grinned brightly at her.

Then there was an awkward silence.

"So... you have a dinner plan yet?" Hermione asked, feeling pretty stupid about the whole thing.

"Right now we're just scouting," Suguro explained. "Or he is scouting, while I'm sitting here, reading stuff out loud."

"I can hear you," Rin grunted.

Suguro chuckled. "Understand too?"

"My English is not that bad!"

"Then translate this stuff yourself!" he groaned. "It's food, you should be able to recognize most of it!"

"Then you would be sad about being completely useless," Rin answered immediately.

The bickering was quite amusing, even if they were quite harsh to each other. Definitely a bit more than she was used to.

"It's nice that you decided to let Mrs. Weasley spend time with her family like that."

Suguro just huffed. "That's one hell of a stubborn woman. One would thing a world was going to an end if she didn't spend her quality time in kitchen, or something."

"She's just used to cooking for everyone."

"Whatever," he shrugged.

"Okay!" Rin suddenly clapped his hands together. "I have a plan! Bon, peel veggies for me, you there, join the fun!"

Hermione blinked. "Bon?"

"Don't ask," Suguro grimaced. "And don't use it either."

"...okay?"

"Don't mind him, princess is just a prick."

"You spend all night thinking about it, didn't you?"

"Princess?" the need to ask was stronger than her common sense.

"You are planning to drop all of the ridiculous nicknames you even came up with, didn't you?" Suguro grunted. His voice sounded menacing, but he just picked up the knife and started peeling the potatoes. Hermione decided to help, since just sitting there and staring would be stupid.

"You never cease to be hilarious."

"Cease, huh?" Suguro hummed. "You learned a bunch of new words."

Rin rolled his eyes. "I'm not that bad, you know. And I spend a lot of time away from home too."

For all the bickering, they worked together surprisingly well. They also seemed to know what they were doing, to the point Hermione felt like a klutz.

"Crap, it felt like we're back at school, isn't it?" Rin shook his head.

Suguro made a small noise of agreement.

"You were cooking while you were at high school?"

"The prices at the school cafeteria were crazy," Suguro shrugged. "And he and his brother were living at the old dormitory building. They pretty much had all the place for themselves, kitchen included."

"Hey, to use the kitchen I had to talk Ukobach into a cooking contest!"

"Ukobach?"

"He's a demon," Rin shrugged, like he was talking about the weather. "Sort of like those elves of yours, but not quite. He really didn't like when people did things in his territory."

"Wasn't that dangerous?"

"Not very," he shrugged. "Anyhow, the bunch of us ended up putting the money together and cooking on our own."

"It was fun wasn't it?"

"Yeah. But I have no idea how we managed to squeeze it all in, between the normal school and the uh... juku?"

"Cram school," Suguro helped.

"Oh," Hermione nodded slowly. She knew that in Japan people were very serious about everything education-related and the students attended not only the normal school, but also a second one, that was concentrating on solving all sort of quizzes and exams.

"What are you making anyway?"

"No worries, nothing too Japanese," Rin grinned. "I know you people don't like sashimi or other stuff like it."

"Like that," Suguro corrected him. "And to tell the truth, I don't really care. I spend over a week on British food. you people can suffer through one meal of something more edible."

Hermione snorted.

She knew that he didn't like the traditional British food - it was hard to not learn about that, not when the exorcist was in a mood bad enough to say a thing or two right in Mrs. Weasley face - and it wasn't all that strange. They both were probably used to a really different diet.

Whatever Rin was cooking, it smelled unusual, but quite interesting at the same time.

It was a pretty nice dinner. Excluding the moments when one of them growled at Mrs. Weasley to stay in her chair through the whole thing.

xxx

George exchanged looks with his twin brother and they both nodded.

It wasn't long since Fred was released from the muggle - only not so much - hospital and still looked somewhat pale. But otherwise he was fine. Only his gaze keep wandering around, away from the people and following some invisible beings. It was pissing George off, it really was.

They were twins, they were supposed to be exactly the same. But now there were pale, scar-like lines on his brother shoulder and it just wasn't fair.

Because of that, they both followed the not-cat around, trying to corner it in some dark, lonely corner. Fred said it had two tails and horns, but no matter how long George was petting it, he couldn't find any difference between Kuro and any other cat.

At least the demon still acted more or less like cat should. It liked food and petting and they caught it once drinking firewhisky from Sirius's glass with a really satisfied look on its little snout.

For somebody with their experience in pranking - which was mostly based on having people go where and when they wanted them to go - it was a child's play to get the demonic cat to wander off somewhere and they hadn't even used too much of the resources they gathered for this occasion.

"Okay," George said, looking around, then turning his gaze towards the cat. "Nobody close, no way to run... now chew on me!"

Kuro made the strangest expression they even saw on a cat. Then he proceed to clean one of his paws, completely ignoring the twins.

"Hey, furball!" George groaned. "Stop ignoring me and bite already! I don't have the whole day!"

The cat continued to clean itself. Slowly, like he was taunting them.

George growled with frustration and decided there was no other choice than to go further. If the cat wasn't cooperating, then he had no other choice, but to force the furry demon to do his bidding. He was just about to grab the cat by its tail and pull, when he noticed his brother going even more pale than he already was. Fred, with a shaking hand, gestured, pointing at something behind him. George gulped, having a pretty good guess what to expect.

"What in the world are you two doing?!"

"Bu-sted!" They both groaned and lowered their heads at the same moment. Their foreheads meet with a quiet smack.

"No, seriously," Suguro joined Mom and they both towered over them, surprisingly not arguing with each other. It was bad. Very, very bad. "Please. Do explain yourselves."

"We decided to..." Fred immediately started.

"No lies," Mom cut in before he even started at improvising a story.

"Like you guys could understand anyway," George huffed angrily.

"I can always go get Rin and we can ask the cat what is going on," Suguro shrugged. "Only then you will be in even more trouble, I imagine. It's his cat."

Fred and George exchanged looks. The other exorcist was a really nice, cheerful guy, but they saw what happened to the front doors. One of them actually saw it happening to the doors and really wasn't in the mood of checking how exactly it would feel to be smacked by someone with a power like that.

"Fine," George sighed. "I'm going to spill the beans. I wanted Kuro to bite me."

"Why in the world would you want such a thing?!" Molly gasped. "Don't you realize how dangerous it is?! You brother was really sick!"

"I do agree with your mother, you are being dumb," Suguro said. He sounded more annoyed by the whole situation than scared. The cat didn't seem to care at all. The little furry bastard dared to look like he was bored.

"I just..." Geroge sighed. "I don't want to leave my brother alone."

"What do you mean?" Molly frowned. "He is not alone! He never will be, we are going to help him as much, as we can!"

"You don't get it, do you?"

"The dependence between you two," Suguro grimaced. "Is rather troubling."

"Well, duh!" George grunted. "We are twins. We... I need to know what is going on with Fred. I can't help him otherwise!"

"If you're going to get on this road, then you need to get over it," Suguro crossed his arms. "And you're going to learn how to live without being attached to each other by hip."

"What are you saying?" Molly gasped, looking at Suguro with shocked expression at her face.

"They are going to try again," he explained in a dry voice. "And again, and again, each time risking more. At some point we would be too late to save them from themselves."

"So... you are just going to let them do it?"

"What is better," Suguro looked at Mom with stern expression on his face. "Doing it in controlled environment, with more than one exorcist on hand and an Emergency Key ready to use, or letting them picking up one fight after another with things they are not even understanding yet?"

She went silent after that. The exorcist obviously was right. She knew her sons well and they wouldn't just let it drop. They were going to try until they succeeded. Or got seriously hurt. Molly had more than enough of her kids getting hurt by evil, powerful spirits.

"Is he going to be so sick too?" she only asked in a small voice.

"No," Suguro shook his head. "That was because ghouls are foul creatures," he said. "Usually people are using something much less venomous while introducing somebody to this stuff."

"Like Kuro?" Fred asked.

"Usually it's just some low class demon," he shrugged. "My teacher used goblins - not the creatures you call goblins - and as far as I know the London group prefer to let small insects do the job."

"Woah, wait, there are ghostly insects?"

"Since I can't summon these," Suguro continued, "I'm thinking of asking Rin. He's probably the safest option."

It took much more time than just finding Rin and doing whatever Suguro wanted his friend to do. George suspected that the adults were trying to screw with them, making them nervous enough to drop the idea altogether. There was a lot of talking involved too – first the exorcist talked and talked to Mom, then Dad showed up and there was talking again, pretty much about the same thing, repeating exactly the same arguments.

They even couldn't get away and escape this boredom, because someone asked Moody to keep an eye on them and since then the retired Auror was giving them his best murderous glare.

"Just remember, I'm an making exception here." Ryuji sighed. "I'm not going to start running around and inviting everyone into the club."

"Like we would let Ronniekins got chewed up by anything!" Fred protested angrily.

"Unless that's a spider," George added. "Then we can start talking."

"I am still very angry at you!" Molly thundered at them. "By all means, I should... I don't even know!"

Then she turned towards Suguro.

"And you! I'm not happy with you either!"

The exorcist didn't even roll his eyes. He was used to not agreeing with Mom by now.

"So…" Dad asked, nervously wiping his hands on the front of his robe. "What exactly is going to happen?"

"I'm going to poke them," Rin answered with a small shrug, clearly unhappy with the whole situation. "Then they are going to… see weird stuff."

"That's all?"

"There's nothing else to it," Suguro answered with a small shrug. "But there's no turning back either. Once you see something, you can't exactly will yourself to un–see it. Unless we're talking about frick–fracking with brains like you people do. Though I'm not sure if wiping the memories would wipe the ability too…"

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked at each other nervously and the twins looked as stubborn as ever. Alastor rolled his eyes, because it seemed that they all were going to just stand there for awhile, looking at each other and waiting for some sort of a revelation.

"Okay," he said. "Jab me first then, kid."

"Huh?" Rin's eyes widened.

"You heard me, right?" Alastor snickered. "I do like to know what exactly is lurking around. And besides, you are driving me mad! Just looking at you feels like someone is standing behind me and obliviating the crap out of me every five minutes!"

Because there was definitely something odd about this Rin kid, but the more Moody was glaring at him, the more the details were getting away from him. He knew they were there, but they just kept escaping from his memory, like his mind refused to accept the reality. A bit more of that and Alastor would end up crazy.

"Besides," he continued with a small snicker. "This is the easiest way to check if it's safe for the brats, isn't it?"

It was. It was also very underwhelming. Everybody expected at least some fireworks to happen, but it was literally a small jab with a finger. Alastor didn't feel any different after Rin stepped away. He was about to open his mouth and tell the kids that something wasn't working with their little trick, but then he noticed, that the invisible–obliviator–feeling finally disappeared. And the fact that Rin looked different. Nothing exactly unhuman about him, just little details. Sharper teeth, a small change in how his ears looked like, eyes much more blue. And some weird little things flying lazily in the air, but since both of the exorcist were completely ignored them, Alastor written them off as an unimportant detail for now.

"That's better," Alastor said with satisfaction.

Rin grimaced. "You people are crazy."

xxx

Crazy wizards were indeed. Not long after the twins finally stopped being troublesome and stalkery towards poor Kuro, another thing came up out of nowhere.

"You have a what where?!" Suguro spluttered. He couldn't possibly hear the man right.

"That ghoul was always in the attic," Mr. Weasley admitted with a sheepish smile. "He's not even smelling weirdly or anything."

"You have a ghoul in the attic?!" Rin gasped. "But why?"

"I don't know," the wizard shrugged. "He just… was there, when we moved in. He never even attacked a thing, he's just hanging there. Sometimes he bash on the pipes, but not too hard or anything."

Suguro hid face in both of his hands with a painful groan.

A ghoul. In the attic. And nobody cared.

"The hell is wrong with you people?" Rin said, perfectly voicing their shared opinion about the whole thing. And the wizard mentioned it only now, a few days after ghouls attacked one of his sons.

"We really don't think it was one of these," the wizards explained themselves.

To be fair, they could be actually right. The magical society seemed to be completely oblivious when it came to what was a daily routine for an exorcist and it possibly could have something to do with all these fancy spells hiding their houses from mundane eyes. It was making some sense, especially if the supernatural beings saw the magical barriers in a way Suguro did. Those were just straight in the eww territory, messing up with his senses. Not even a really crazy spirit would want to run into that, not when everywhere around were much easier targets. Besides, it wasn't like normal people were stumbling upon wraiths on daily basis.

"Maybe it's a familiar?" Rin proposed. "You know, at some point they were living among normal people like… normal people, so maybe someone actually has something to do with our job, or something?"

And then had babies, the babies grew up and had other babies and the contact with the spirit was still existing, while the knowledge about it got lost at some point.

Suguro blinked. "That actually makes sense."

"Why the hell do you sound so surprised?" Rin hissed.

"Who would want something man–eating and stinky as their familiar?" Mrs. Weasley shook her head in disapproval. "That's dangerous!"

"…that's the general idea behind taking a familiar like that," Suguro said, trying not to chuckle. He failed. Mrs. Weasley glared at him angrily. "Anyhow, we can check it out even from here."

"How exactly?" the woman blinked.

"If it's a familiar of the family, then It is possible that one of your kids is a tamer and can summon it. And do please, don't look at me like that, I don't mean to go there and teach the kids how to summon a man–eating creature right now!"

Mrs. Weasley only glared at him some more.

They ended up trying things out anyway, for the exactly same reason as before. The kids could land themselves in danger not while not even trying to do so; spontaneous summoning wasn't a thing to happen very often, but it was still possible. Especially during a stressful events and, considering what Ryuji knew about what was going in Hogwarts... it ought to happen at some point.

"So, this thing is going to keep whatever shows up contained?" Moody asked, looking doubtfully at the scribbles on the floor.

It seemed that smearing random swirls in rings with chalk was a favorite pastime of Muggles. It was beginning to be hard to walk around the place with all that stuff on the floors. He knew, of course, that a man could do a lot with things like Ancient Runes. But those were no runes and it definitely was not a wizard who created them. Then again, the reality seemed to be not working properly. If something was going to go wrong, then at least now Alastor will be able to see it.

"Yeah, not leaving the ring," Rin enthusiastically nodded. "We're only calling to say hi anyway."

All the kids needed to do, was to say whatever come to mind, after smearing a drop of blood on a piece of paper with more swirls on it. For that, Suguro produced a handful of needless, all of them neatly packed the muggle way – in the paper wrapper and a little plastic tube. Why in the world the brat was even carrying things like that on hand was beyond Alastor.

"Rise, my undead army!" Fred was first one to go, but luckily, no undead army decided to show up. Everyone breathed out with relief, while he muttered something under his breath, rather unhappily.

George was next in line, followed by Ron.

"Biddy–babiddy–bo!" he mumbled with the roll of his eyes, then grinned. Because the ring was still empty. "Why are you looking at me like that? I don't want to have anything to do with all that madness!"

Suguro and Rin exchanged glances.

"_It's just me, or he's the only sane one around?_" Rin asked, not even trying to lower his voice. Language barrier was a beautiful thing.

"_He's the only sane person_," Ryuji agreed. From all of the kids at the Grimmauld Place, Ron was the only one who preferred to stay away from weird, unhealthy stuff. Meanwhile his friends and family were pretty much tossing themselves either in the whole new world or into all the books they could put their hands on.

Ginny nervously stood in front of the ring, a piece of paper in one hand and a sterile needle in the other. She wasn't sure if she wanted to invite something any time soon. She still remembered how scary these beasts were and how close they were to hurting her Mom just a few days ago. To being able to control something like that, or even worse, to order it to chase someone… a truly mind numbing scenario. On the other hand, it was a weapon. Something different from her wand, something no one would be able to take from her. With all of the Death Eaters hidden in plain sight, she really needed something more than just her wand to feel safe. And even if the wand was in her hand day and night– it's not like it was able to keep her away from that little, black book that almost ate Ginny's soul.

"Step forward and join me!" Ginny heard herself speaking. The words were just appearing like they always were there, just waiting for a chance to slip out. A surge of something unfamiliar went through her body, filling her veins with a cold sensation. "Appear, my knight!"

The chalk ring on the floor came to life with the second sentence. The complicated patter moved, rotating slowly but surely towards the left, the unfamiliar runes slowly filled with dim, cold light. The center of the ring filled with mist – or maybe it was foam or something else entirely – with a quiet hissing noise.

Then, there it was. A ghoul was standing in the middle of the ring, crooked forward. It looked different than the beasts that attacked them; while it still was deadly pale and had disturbingly long hands, all of the limbs seemed to actually belong to him instead of being chopped off from random bodies and sewn together. The only visible sews were on its head – a wide, uneven row of dark lines crisscrossing the place where the eyes were supposing to be and another one, this time wide open, around the mouth area.

Ginny, same as most of the other people in the room, gasped.

The ghoul opened its mouth. "Hellooo."

"…what," Suguro said, his voice flat.

Rin blinked and looked at his friend. "Wait, since when you can understood demons?"

"You are not supposed to understand him?" Fred shook his head. "But he clearly said..."

"Hellooo," the ghoul repeated.

"That," George finished for his brother.

"Usually only the summoner is able to communicate with the summon," Suguro explained with a groan, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Then why Rin is supposed to understand that?" Moody frowned.

Okumura snickered. "Not human."

"Um, yeah, right…" Alastor mumbled awkwardly, feeling stupid. It was stupidly easy, to forget about the guy…whatever he was.

After the summoning piece of paper was torn, the ghoul obediently disappeared, leaving the wizards and exorcist still staring at the ring.

"I guess talkative dead things are not what was supposed to happen?" Molly asked slowly.

"Talking usually is not included," Suguro admitted. "Though I think he got… weird after being stuck in the attic for so long. Probably heard people talking and started to mimic it after awhile."

"You're just guessing," Rin scratches his head. "But eh, I got nothing! It's just a weird one and that's it!"

"I think I'm going to name him Lance," Ginny said, unfazed by the whole talking thing. So what if the ghoul was able to greet her? It was still just one word.

"Lance?" Suguro repeated after her, staring like she suddenly grew herself a second head.

"Lancelot," she said, like it was going to explain everything.

"But... why?"

"My name is Ginevra," Ginny rolled her eyes in mild annoyance. "What else were you expecting?"

It was hard to not agree with her. It was all in the name. Even the summoning call fit the theme, even if the knight wasn't exactly wearing an armor. Or any clothes at all.

"Okay," Suguro took a deep breath and ran fingers through his hair. "Let's set some ground rules. Don't call Lance without supervision at any circumstances."

"Really?" Ginny frowned. "But... shouldn't I get used to him?"

"You do remember that one of his kind almost killed your brother, right?"

"Yeah..." she grimaced.

"The fact that you happened to be his tamer doesn't change how dangerous Lance is, kid." Suguro explained. "You might got somebody seriously hurt by a complete accident."

"Yeah, I got it," she shuddered. "But after I train in being that tamer or whatever... it will be fine, right?"

"To tell the truth, I don't know much about that specialization," Suguro sighed. "Even less about actually commanding ghouls."

"But that fire of yours..." she furrowed her brow." You said it was a spirit, right?"

"It started more like a family contract and ended up just plain weird," Suguro shrugged. This was not the time to dive into his family history or his personal one.

"This is the most used word in your job, isn't it? Weird?"

"Yeah, it sort of is," he smirked. "Anyhow. I do know a man who is a tamer too and even do the ghoul stuff. I'm going to try to contact him, though I'm not sure if he can speak English."

"Oh," she blinked. "Is he Japanese too?"

"Actually he's German, I think?" Suguro shrugged. "Or something nearby. In the worst case scenario somebody would just run the translation between you two."

"Why are you so sure he is going to agree?" Ginny chewed on her lip. "I mean he don't need to do anything for people he don't know... And it's not like I can tell him that I'm a witch."

"Being a tamer is a very rare thing, I told you that before," Suguro smirked. "And finding somebody with exact same type of familiar is like winning a lottery."

"Okay..." she said slowly. "but that still don't mean that he would be ready to just drop something and travel all the way here just to teach me!"

"He's fine," Rin said. "He's kinda uptight and all about the consequences of your actions and stuff, but he's going to help!"

What he was not going to say was the fact that the guy also tried to murder him really hard. They talked it over, it got better. Now they are just avoiding staying in the same room. City. Country. Whatever. The wizards didn't need to know that little detail.

"Do you even know if he is a good teacher?"

"He taught our group for a few month, up until the first exam," Ryuji smiled slightly. "Actually he was the key item in that test."

"How so?"

Rin happily admitted: "He summoned two ghouls and set them on us?" Then he wanted to bit his tongue, but it was too late.

"He what?!" Molly gasped.

"Well, they had to check out how we are going to act in a dangerous situation," Suguro just shrugged. "So they left us in big empty building, closed the doors and turned the lights out."

"That's terrible!"

"Nah," he waved his hand. "After we were done with freaking out we managed to pass. And the teachers were hiding all over the place too, so if there was a real danger they would step in."

Well, that was the pretty and not exactly truthful version. The teacher were perfectly fine with letting them get grabbed and one of their schoolmates got seriously hurt. Then there was that one small issue with that particular teacher actively trying to kill one of the students during that particular exam...

"Besides, you have school anyway," he decided to finish his speech neutrally, since he really wasn't in the mood to fight with the woman again. "Try to concentrate on that and during the summer break you should have enough time to grasp most of what you need about taming."

"And before that, no calling for Lance?"

"Unless you're in a real danger," he sighed. "Like that fancy terrorist of yours standing in front of you and no way to run. But you need to be ready for the consequences."

"Don't say things like that!" Molly immediately protested. "She's just a child!"

"In a world where are people perfectly fine with targeting brats!" Suguro groaned. "I'm not telling her to run around and murder everyone who will look at her in a wrong way."

He only suggested that she might find herself in a situation, where killing in cold blood was the only logical conclusion. He hoped she will never find herself in danger, but live proved him over and over again, that hope wasn't enough.

xxx

The first of September was mercilessly approaching and they still had to find a way how to deal with a handful of teenagers who gained new abilities over the course of summer. What exactly the staff was supposed to do about them, or help them when they approach some problem that is invisible to anyone else? Asking Suguro and Rin for repeating their little favor was out of the question – it was one thing for bunch of teenagers to be absent–minded and for their gaze to wander around, following some supernatural being and a completely different thing for a teacher to do the same. Especially with that woman in Hogwarts, observing them all like a hawk, waiting for anything to use against Dumbledore. A sudden epidemic of seeing things would definitely made her day.

It wasn't the only worrisome thing on their plate. The more they were thinking about the ghoul's attack, the more it looked like an actual attack and not like a random happening. Someone deliberately set the ghouls at them, knowing that the wizards had no way of protecting themselves. Only the poor communication skills that led to a very fortunate kidnapping saved their lives.

By all means, it could happen all over again, this time at Hogwarts. They couldn't let it happen, not without having at least one line of defense between the monsters and the students – and Ginny Weasley didn't count. She was one of the children and a tamer, especially one as inexperienced as her has no way of taking control over beings summoned by another. Or so the exorcist said.

Albus Dumbledore wasn't sure if he trusted Suguro. While the boy definitely saved lives, he was also too ambitious to not have an agenda. Then again, desperate times called for desperate measures.

"What about communication?" Suguro asked. "I would like to keep contact with Harry. And Mamushi. I can't just send her in there and hope for the best."

"I am going to be fine," the woman cut in shortly, but he ignored her completely.

Sneaking Mamushi into Hogwarts was the most reasonable thing to do, even if it seemed cold. The woman had no connection to whatever powers the exorcists were answering to. If something was going to go wrong, the mess with political clash would be avoided. The price, however…

Mamushi herself seemed to be absolutely fine with taking the risk. With her cold demeanor she was perfect for playing the role of a pureblood from afar away country, which should keep her relatively safe. Still, the idea was just plain crazy, smuggling a Muggle into school of magic and masquerading her as a noble. With magical powers, no less.

"Well, there is owl post..."

"You really expect me to drag a bird to wherever I'm going?" Suguro raised eyebrows.

"And I doubt you'll be too fond of sticking your head into the chimney to use the floo..." Lupin muttered.

"Wait, what?!" The exorcist gasped. Then suspiciously looked at the chimney, now standing there cold and slightly covered in tar. "You like... kneel in front of it and stuff your head into the flames?"

"First you need to use the floo powder," Sirius pointed out.

"How come nobody kicked you in the ass when you're doing something like that?"

The wizards made all sort of different noises. Sirius started hysterically giggling and was unable to calm himself down.

"What?" Suguro asked after waiting for a minute, so the man would have time to put himself back together.

"How come you said it like it was a logical thing to do?"

"It is? Sort of?"

"I never thought of it," Ron admitted.

"We never thought of it!" the twins cried.

"Why did you give them the idea?" Molly groaned.

Suguro just shrugged.

Sirius finally crawled out from under the table. His face was wet with tears and he was breathing heavily, still with a wide, toothy grin.

"I might have just a thing," he managed to wheeze.

"Oh?"

"A two-way mirror," he said and inhaled again. "You say a name and tap it with your wand and a person you want to talk to appear. When that person got a mirror too."

"I see one small problem there," Suguro grimaced.

"I think I can work something out," Sirius continued, forcing his breathing to calm down. It wasn't going to well with him talking, but he managed to be at least understandable. "Me and Lily... we played a lot with these things, trying to recreate the idea and then modify it. The original was sort of big, you know."

"You did?" Harry blinked.

"Yeah," Sirius nodded, blushing with embarrassment. "Sorry i didn't tell you before."

"Well, it's not like you had the time," Harry sighed. "But tell me later okay?"

"So you think you can made these things to work without using a wand?"

"Yeah," he muttered. "We actually added the wand thing, since the mirror suddenly was pocket-size. Just to keep them from turning on during talking with people when you actually have one of the mirrors in your pocket."

"Have you try to have them password locked?" Suguro proposed. "Or like phones with touch-screen, to turn it on you actually have to move your fingers against the surface."

"Huh," Sirius raised his eyebrows. "That's actually pretty interesting. We could use a rune, or something..."

"And can you create a connection between more than one mirror?"

" I might try," he shrugged. "Why?"

"Well, I bet you want to keep in touch with Harry," Ryuji said. "Same as I do."

"But you want me to give Ma'am Hojo one," Black guessed, eyeing the always angry woman carefully. She was scary, scarier than McGonagall, even just after catching him in the middle of a really dumb prank.

"Yeah, that's about it."

"It's not like I have anything better to do," Sirius said, giving another shrug. "But it will take some time. I'm a bit rusty and I'm going to re-read some stuff before I even start..."

Still talking to himself, he stood up and walked away with a whole new spring in his step.

Lupin and Molly just stared after him, like he grown himself a second head.

"That was very clever," Dumbledore said, walking into the room. "I'm afraid I was unable to provide Sirius with something to keep him occupied."

"That's actually surprising," Mamushi said. "Didn't you want to keep in contact with his family?"

"I'm afraid we are so used to owls, that different ways are... not so easy to notice."

"And they told me that I tend to think in straight lines," Suguro chuckled. "Anyhow, don't you think that the Ministry of yours will be trying to hunt down your birds? They already don't like you and they might come up with a way to call you a terrorist group."

"They have an easy access to take over the floo network," Dumbledore admitted. " I doubt that they will ever go that far."

"It's better to be prepared than surprised," Mamushi said coldly. "The mirrors are a good idea. And you can actually use them among Muggles. Just put them in the plastic casing and they will look exactly like a fancy phone."

Mrs. Weasley furrowed her brow. "Aren't phones these strange devices bout to a wall with a curly line?"

"They were about fifty years ago?" Suguro snorted. "Seriously, you guys should keep up with times."

"But that was only fifty years ago!" Molly protested.

* * *

**A/N:** Hello again! Thank you guys for the reviews and favs!

About this chapter - well, Dumbledore talked. I read a lot of fanfiction and because of my love for time-travel or other forms of alternating the universe, I've read more than just a few scenes where the poor guy is portrayed as absolutely stupid when it comes to the whole prophecy thingie. So, I decided to have a little twist on it and show that he actually was trying to tweak the thing as far as possible. Obviously, it didn't work, because TMR is a smart cookie.

Next chapter - Hogwarts. Finally. First arc of the story - officially finished.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** Sorry for updating a few hours later than usual. Real Life decided that bugging me is funny.  
Right now we're entering - sort of - a new arc of this story. I'm not a big fan of following the canon stuff up close, so instead of rewriting the whole, well-known scenes, I'm going to dance around them, so I can deliver something more or less fresh.

All the reviews are greatly appreciated. Also, over 200 favorites! That's definitely a lot, at least in my book! Thank You!

**Chater 11**  
**"Zoe"**

Molly Weasley sighed, longing for the days where the life was making sense. But these were long gone and not coming back ever again.

While her days looked mostly the same, filled with taking care of the house, cooking and other things a decent housewife was filling her time with, Molly worries twisted and changed. Once, she was getting her migraines from trying to find a way to stop the twins from sending home yet another toilet bowl or doing other ridiculous things. Then, when the Death Eaters risen once again, following their master, she started to fear for her children lives. After all, her whole family was known for being quite tolerant if not fond of muggle world and supporting Dumbledore.

Then, it turned out to be even worse, when the exorcist barged into their small magical world, flipping everything on its head and introducing a whole new reality, one so terrifying, she could barely find the right words to describe it. The horrifying image of pale monster leaping towards her will be forever burned into her mind. The twins, Harry, even her precious little Ginny, they all found themselves dragged right in the middle of this madness, with no way out.

Molly was awaiting the beginning of school year, hoping that the insanity would end as soon as the kids would return to the safety of school grounds. But while it definitely turned out to be much quieter after they left, it definitely wasn't any less strange.

Suguro and his friend decided to stick around, waiting for Sirius to finish at least one two–way mirror. It made sense, since the only way of contacting Harry and their other friend – who Molly didn't even wanted to think about, because Muggles! Infiltrating Hogwarts of all places and with Dumbledore's blessing! – was through magical means. While Molly somewhat got used to Suguro, the other young man was… well.

While she was getting into constant fights with Suguro over every silly thing possible, Rin just took over the kitchen the moment he appeared and refused to let her in. ever. Molly actually tried more than once to sneak in there, just for a few minutes, but the young man always managed to catch her red–handed and then shoo her back for more quality–time with family. How he was even doing that?

On the other hand, people that rarely were invited in the kitchen while Molly was around, tended to visit the place too often for her comfort. Like that time, when Rin decided to demonstrate the muggle way of science. He used two coins, two nails and raw potatoes to do so. After wrapping the entire ridiculous thing in wire he attached a small light–bulb and said "Ta–daah!", because there was light. Honestly, the Muggles were getting more and more ridiculous with every passing century. Of course, both Sirius and her husband were in the absolute awe about the whole potato deal and Molly ended up finding entire chains of raw vegetables all around the place.

This morning Arthur was acting slightly weird too, she noted with a small frown. Instead of just apparting to his job after giving her a kiss on the cheek, he looked almost like he was trying to crept out of her like of sight, curling... and definitely hiding something. Molly knew all too well what exactly.

"Arthur," she groaned, crossing his path and stopping right in front of him in a way that he had no escape route at all. "You are not stealing potatoes from my kitchen!"

"But Honey!" the man wailed miserably. "I need them!"

"Work is not where you can play with your potatoes and you know it!"

"This is such a brilliant muggle thing, Molly!" he continued to argue. "I bet all Muggle kids are doing it at school! And many other things! How we are supposed to work efficiently, when we don't understand their traditions?"

"This is not a tradition, this is a potato."

"Yes Honey!" Arthur nodded vigorously. "A very important potato that makes stuff shine!"

"Are you even hearing yourself?" she shook her head. "This is beyond ridiculous! You are going to work, not on the playground, for Merlin sake!"

He whined some more, getting dangerously close to being late for work.

"Arthur, I'm going to say it one last time," Molly put hands on her hips. "Put the potatoes down. Now."

He sighed heavily, lowering his head in defeat. "Yes, Honey..." he murmured. A few minutes later he finally aparted to his work, leaving Molly alone in the house, with a handful of potatoes lying on the table beside her.

She looked at them, sulking.

"Why couldn't I marry a wizard who was not insane?" she groaned. "Potatoes! Of all things!"

She was definitely going to have her words with that boy the next time she meets him. Filling Arthurs mind with all that muggle nonsense! She understood that sharing culture was important and all, but not when that culture was made from vegetable and wasn't doing anything besides making a single light–bulb shine. It was just ridiculous. But of course Arthur was absolutely amazed by the whole thing and so, stealing random food items from her kitchen began, because the man wouldn't be himself if he hasn't checked every option available.

Molly was pretty sure Suguro knew it too and he was also aware how she was going to react. t was probably the sole reason why they showed (or rather Rin got the permission to do so) that dumb trick to Arthur in the first place. For somebody wearing such long list of titles, the young exorcist was ridiculously bratty at times.

She groaned once more and then picked up the potatoes, noting that now she would have to clean the table too; the potatoes left dirt on it. And inside Arthurs pockets too, but now it was too late to catch him and do the quick cleaning charm. Why couldn't he just spend that few seconds and wash these blasted things?

xxx

Arthur walked into his office with his chin raised high and looked around at the innocent faces of his co-workers, all of them oblivious to what was coming.

"Behold," he said, trying to maintain a serious expression on his face. But it was so hard to not grin triumphantly! "Because I bring you the potato!"

xxx

Arthur Weasley wasn't the only one who was too interested in their muggle guests for his own good.

"So, instead of being bored out of your mind, why not do something interesting?" Moody developed a habit of sorts, to bug at least one of the exorcist for a fight. While Rin usually rolled his eyes and then disappeared in the kitchen – or someplace else in the mansion – his friend usually smiled back. "I would really like to have my rematch."

"You want another fight?" Suguro raised his eyebrows.

"Well, nothing else to do here, unless you really like to be bored," Moody shrugged. "Besides, with the kids out we finally don't need to keep things pretty."

Suguro considered his options, his brow furrowed. The boredom wasn't a real issue for him; he was able to find a way to occupy himself easily. It would be actually quite relaxing, first time in many weeks he actually had time to sit down and meditate, recite his sutras or just to recall every book he memorized, just to make sure he still could recite even the least useful of them without stumbling on his words. It was quite important thing to do, even if it was taking a lot of time.

On the other hand, a perspective of beating the man up was a tempting one. Especially since the guy asked for it. Literally.

The wizards already knew what he was capable of - mostly. As Moody said, with the kids around they were keeping everything clean and pretty. However he still knew only a little about their abilities and the man called Moody seemed to be a seasoned warrior. It looked like catching a glimpse of the ugly would be beneficial.

"I don't see why not," Ryuji said out loud, looking around with disinterest. "But I don't think it would be wise to play around here. This is quite a nice room, it would be a shame to trash it."

"Black hates this place guts anyway," Moody shrugged. "But there is that huge and useless room that we filled up with unnecessary stuff. That might be fun."

The room would be quite spacious indeed, with a really high ceiling. Well, it would be if it wasn't filled with piles of stuff. There was a real labyrinth created with tables and chairs and truly old looking chests, lamps and other items. There was quite a collections of paintings lying by one of the walls and even a few rather ugly sculptures.

Suguro whistled.

"Usually you're supposed to use empty rooms for that sort of fun."

"What, are you afraid that a little obstacle is going to screw you?" Moody smirked.

"Are you going to need the obstacles to hide from me?" Ryuji grinned back.

It was a very interesting playground, to say the least. Many piles of random cluster created a perfect hiding spots and the narrow corridors between them made impossible to run very fast or even in a straight line. The situation called for being very inventive. It also caused a lot of spectacular destruction, hence one of the wall was charmed to be transparent. The current owner of the house wanted to enjoy the show without being constantly hit with bits and pieces of what once was his legacy.

"What in Merlin's name is going on here?!" Molly gasped.

Another crash came out of the ballroom.

Tonks, Sirius and even Lupin were sitting in the rows of chairs in front of the transparent wall, observing a fight inside with a fascination. Sirius was there to, welcoming every single crash with a glee.

"Why are they fighting?" Molly demanded. "And why aren't you stopping them?"

"Moody asked!" Tonks explained, then cheered loudly.

"Asked?" Molly grimaced. "Why would he ask...?"

"Because that guy stepped on him and he didn't like it," Sirius explained with a toothy grin. "This is the third time they're at it."

"Third?" Mrs. Weasley shook her head. "Why on Earth would they fight so many times?"

"They have a row, I think," this time it was Remus, who explained. "Well, if you count the time when they all showed up. If not, then Moody is having a slight advantage…"

Molly shook her head, still unsure how she should react. Meanwhile a very old, definitely very expensive coffee table flew through the clustered ballroom, smacked into antique chandelier with a painful, high–pitched shriek of breaking glass and landed on the other side of the room. The bits and chunks of glass weren't done raining down on the room, when the two men clashed with each other.

Then, they froze, both grinning and breathing heavily. Suguro had his hand on Moody's throat, but he also could feel a wand digging under his collarbone.

"Well," Alastor said, his smile widening. "What a drag. It looks like we still have a tie."

"This was fun," Suguro agreed, then stepped away.

"You're pretty crafty for somebody who just saw the magic for the first time."

"Or you just meet all the wrong people before," Suguro shrugged.

"You know that you have a nasty habit of checking the ceiling when you're looking around, right?"

"And?"

"This is a bad thing," Moody grimaced. "I think you would've got me this time if you didn't waste time for that. What were you looking for there anyway?"

"You don't really want to know," he said.

Moody hmpfed.

Molly decided to just leave and forget the whole thing ever happened. It was the best way to keep her sanity intact.

xxx

After the feast ended, Draco sighed deeply and hoped that it wouldn't take him too long to shoo the first year Slytherins at least in the general direction of their dormitory. He was tired and probably ate too much, but this year these dumb house elves finally get the recipe right and the slytherin's taste buds weren't suffering anymore.

"Slytherin, this way!" Pansy seemed to be enjoying herself, even if the other people couldn't possible enjoy her voice; it was way to high when she was speaking to loudly and now she really wanted to be heard.

At least Draco himself was not needed to waste his throat on calling clueless brats. If Pansy was going to stay so eager in doing her job, than his stay at Hogwarts was to be even better than he expected it to be.. all the power to destroy the day of Potter and his merry group and no obligations whatsoever.

Well, besides of being required to stand there and wait for the brats to go to sleep. It took awhile.

After almost an hour - it felt like eternity - most of the first years finally were where they belong. Most of them. There was that particular brat, with two puffy black ponytails and big, brown eyes that followed him the whole evening like a puppy.

"Why are you following me?" Draco frowned, giving the little girl a nasty glare and hoping it would be enough to scary her off.

No such luck.

"I am Zoe Falana," she said, raising proudly her chin.

"And...?"

"And you are a Prefect, aren't you?" her lips formed a smile full of satisfaction. "You are supposed to help first years and answer the questions when they have some. Isn't that right?"

Draco groaned. He wasn't allowed to curse other Slytherins, Snape was always giving the worst detentions when he found out about something like that. And he was always able to learn about such things.

"What do you want?" He moaned, hoping that it would end soon. "Just hurry up, you're supposed to be in your bed like half an hour ago."

"I am looking for a husband," she stated in a manner that was supposed to mean business, but in a high pitched voice of an eleven year old girl it sounded just ridiculous.

"You what?" Draco shook his head. "And what possibly I have to do with that?"

"You are pureblood, aren't you?" Zoe huffed impatiently. "And you know who is who in the whole Magical Britain. Ain't that right?"

Draco furrowed his brow, forcing himself to think. Considering her odd accent, he wasn't from around here. The fact that she ended up in the Slytherin and her first question was about Purebloods and marriage gave him even more information.

It wasn't unheard of parents to send their children to foreign schools to let them meet peers they were not related too, thought it wasn't a very usual thing to do. The heirs of ancient lines traveled the world for a few years after finishing the school and besides looking at the sight they were looking at the women too. It wasn't a good idea to mix the blood too close and if one wanted to keep the line nice and pure, one had to think carefully.

If this little girl was of a ancient line like her words suggested, than she was more than useful. He definitely could use a favor or two from some people and all he needed to do to gain them, was to introduce her to them. By all means, with a bit of manipulation he could demand a favor from her too.

"I might consider it," Draco generously agreed. "Why don't you tell me a bit about yourself first?"

This happened to be not the best of his ideas. Once Zoe opened her mouth and started to talk about her bloodline, she wasn't shutting up, feeling the need to share all the accomplishment of her entire dynasty. It was long, complicated and he desperately tried to memorize as much as possible, while fighting a battle with his own mind to not feel asleep.

"Can we continue tomorrow?" Draco gave up after awhile. "It is going to be an important day for you, after all. First lessons, and all... you should be rested."

"Ah!" Zoe gasped, then grinned widely. "How considerate of you! "

Then finally, finally she bowed to him and jogged back to her room.

Draco sighed in relief, feeling that even five more minutes was going to reduce him to sleeping in the Common Room in one of the armchairs.

"Your new girlfriend finally let you go?" Zabini joked, welcoming him in their dormitory.

"Want to meet her?" Draco groaned and dropped gracelessly onto his bed. "I guarantee all day completely filled."

"Uh, no," Zabini grimaced. "I prefer more silent partners, thank you very much."

"Then you and your mother had something in common," Nott joked from his side of the room.

"Ugh," Draco grimaced. "Please, stop thinking you have a sense of humor. You don't. This was terrible."

"Whatever," Zabini shrugged. He was too used to people alluding to his mother love-life and husbands suddenly dying to really care. "What do you think about our new addiction to our humble teaching staff?"

"You mean Madam Umbridge?" Draco raised one eyebrow. "Well, she is here to put Dumbledore and his people in their places. Maybe she will do something about that half-human. I have no idea why he's even here, after that monster of his almost tore my arm off..."

"You're still going at it?" Zabini snorted. "You don't even have a scar!"

"I have. Mental one." Draco huffed. "Do you know how it felt like, to have that kind of a monster charging at you?"

"Umbridge is somewhat sore on the eyes," Nott muttered. "But the foreign one is quite a looker. Shame she lacks an eye."

Draco suppressed a frustrated groan. One–tracked mind of Nott wasn't too big of a surprise, considering the fact that the poor sap was already meeting up with every promising lady his father wanted in the family for one reason or another. As far as he knew, they either were around four or forty. Nott Junior had all the reasons for looking around for a lady that he would be able to at least look at without dying on the inside.

"Aren't she a bit too old for you?"

"Young enough to carry children," Nott shrugged. "And they are saying that Asian chicks turns into old hags very late."

"Maybe she has a sister. One with both eyes. And without weird things painted on the face."

"Good idea," Nott smiled lazily. "We should pick her brain about it."

Later that evening, Draco was lying in his bed, thinking. Was the foreign teacher assistant here for the same reason Zoe was?

People were talking about the Dark Lord return and even if the Ministry was calling it a complete lie, all the filth seemed to be much more unsure, walking less proudly and generally being more silent than ever.

The Purebloods, true ones and not the Bloodtraitors or these dumb people who were screaming about purity of blood only after four or five generations, were much easier to tell apart from other people. Some of them were thinking about moving out of the country, just to avoid all that mess that will come with putting old, demented Dumbledore away. This was quite a treat for all the foreigners who were looking for fresh blood to revitalize their lines and on their own ground too.

Draco hummed to himself. He probably should write to his father about all that.

While he liked Pansy and knew that Pansy liked him - way too much but it was a good thing, she let him hug herself and never said anything about his hands wandering too low or to high - he doubted that she was going to be his wife. Her blood was pure enough, but he was sure that his parents preferred somebody more... dignified.

But a perspective of a foreign marriage would be at least an interesting thing to occupy mind for his father.

xxx

Hogwarts was much more annoying that Mamushi ever though any building had right to be. The staircases were moving and she could swear that at least two corridors had a nasty habit of rearranging themselves daily. Not to mention the portraits. These were just plain disturbing, always observing, always there and sometimes loudly commenting whatever was going on in front of them.

It wasn't helping that she had to be on guard day and night, keeping the masquerade going.

"Elf!" she barked in demanding tone, playing her role.

A small goblin-like creature obediently showed up a few steps in front of her, awaiting orders. It was pretty hard for her to get used to feeling the presence of the House Elves all around, but Mamushi was very adaptable. Besides, she banned all of the servant not–demons from her bedroom, after their sudden appearance startled her awake in the middle of the night.

The call was answered by the weird one once again, the one that keep on wearing way too much clothing and talked in a strangest way.

"Get the room ready," Mamushi demanded, sitting in her chair and crossing legs. "I plan to introduce the group to the meditation techniques."

"Dobby will do his best!" the creature shouted enthusiastically and disappeared with a loud popping noise.

"Mind you answering me what have you planned?" Dolores asked sweetly. As far as Mamushi knew, the woman was still not quite sure how to place her. She was a foreigner observer that decided to visit England to learn, but she was also capable of forcing a favor out of Dumbledore – or so the cover story went. Mamushi was not even a full member of the faculty; she was named an Assistant in the Muggle Studies, but it looked more like she was running a small club about religion and philosophy of the faraway land she came from.

"Meditation," Mamushi answered shortly. "It help to clear mind and that's always useful."

"I see you are working the elves hard," Dolores changed the topic, clearly trying to carefully poke at the things that interested her most.

"Why do it myself when I do have servants?" Mamushi frowned. "I honestly admire you, British people. You are so... tolerant and eager to help, even if the task is far below you."

"Oh, well!" The woman blushed and started babbling nonsense about how tolerant indeed they were and how troubling it was, to live with all the muggleborns trying to force their ways on honest people of old families.

Mamushi listened, nodding in agreement and gasping in all of the right moments, while her mind worked.

Getting in the woman's good graces was a child's play. All she needed to do was to play a role of a sheltered princess that wished to learn about oh so great and civilized Magical Britain and Umbridge was getting out of her way to help as much as possible.

That didn't mean it was all easy. The trouble, naturally started when the Potter boy and his friends had to sit through the very first lesson of Defense and couldn't keep their mouths shut.  
Just what was the point in arguing with someone like that, Mamushi had no idea. It's not like Umbridge would actually nod and thank them for voicing their opinion about the lesson schedule. She wasn't that sort of person. She would take any sort of criticism as an attack and proceed accordingly.

At some point the Potter boy stood up – because of course he had to – and was about to start spilling his well–known story once again.

Mamushi decided to interfere before it went any further in aggravating the Ministry Official anymore and grabbed the boy's arm. He stopped in the middle of the sentence, startled by the sudden touch.

"I have heard things about you," she said in a cold voice. "Poor thing, only fourteen and forced to face dragons! No wonder the mere through about Defense against any creature troubles you so much!"

Harry just gaped at her.

"Do not worry, I am sure that Madam Healer got just the right thing for your poor nerves!" Mamushi continued, then looked at Umbridge.

The woman's expression turned from angry to baffled. Good.

"I shall walk with him to the Hospital Wing. Is that fine?"

"Naturally, my dear!" Umbridge agreed quickly, nodding with enthusiasm. "It is so good of you, to help that poor, distraught boy!"

"I'm not–!" Harry protested.

"Shush!" Mamushi chirped sweetly and forced the boy out of the classroom, before he landed himself in more trouble than he already was.

"The hell was that?!" he hissed at her as soon as they turned around the corner.

"I have the same question to ask you," Mamushi grit her teeth. "You know what sort of a person she is. You know that she's not going to change her mind and you know she is a coward. The more you fight against her, the more ridiculous weaponry she's going to bring on the battlefield, just to feel safe."

"People need to hear the truth!"

Mamushi sighed, unpleasant memories crashing on her like a waterfall. "People usually want anything but that."

xxx

"And then," Harry finished his story. "She dragged me by the ear all the way to the Hospital Winds. I'm pretty sure the portraits are going to gossip about that till next month!"

It was late in the evening and he was still so angry he just had to talk to someone. He talked to Ron and Hermione for awhile, but it didn't take the edge of him. So when they went to sleep – or to re–read the books once again – he decided to bug the exorcist for awhile. He was Hojo's boss after all.

With the curtains carefully shielding his bed from the view and silencing charm cast, he proceed to vent, while Ryuji was observing him with a baffled expression on his face.

"That's good," Suguro said, unable to not chuckle.

"Good?!" Harry protested. "It was embarrassing! It still is!"

"Well, we do want everybody to think that you hate each other guts, don't we?"

Harry pouted.

"The good news is, Umbridge is definitely going to hear it and in more than one version," Suguro said. "I'm actually quite curious how modified it will end up."

"And I'm not," Harry grunted, blushing furiously.

"Look at the bright side," Ryuji changed position to more comfortable one. "You are going to have life easier now. And Mamushi is going to teach you something useful during the detentions."

"She don't know any spells..."

"But she know hand to hand combat and can at least show you how to snatch a weapon out of somebody's hands."

"Huh," Harry blinked.

"She is – was – an exorcist for much longer than I," Suguro continued. "So you are going to have somebody on hand at any times."

"And a reputation of a crazy person."

"That one you have anyway. Use it, since it was so generously given."

"I'm not too good liar," Harry admitted.

"Whatever, you are supposed to be a crazy person anyway," Suguro shrugged. "Just try to not give the Ministry woman any reason to use more power than she already is."

"Then what I'm supposed to do?" Harry frowned. "I can't just sit there and do nothing when she spills lies like that!"

"That's exactly what are you supposed to do. The more you are going to oppose her, the more power she's going to use. Since she is not going anywhere anytime soon, why make your life more difficult than it already is?"

"But there are others... They should have at least a chance to learn something...!" Harry protested.

"You do have exams this year, right?"

"Yes," Harry sighed. "OWLs. And with her teaching us the Defense, everybody is going to fail."

"Goodie!"

"What?" Harry spluttered. "Why are you happy? That's terrible!"

"On the opposite, that's brilliant! And it's just a grade anyway. The nice thing here is, all the years before people were passing these exams without too much trouble, even with teachers changing sometimes more than once during single year. Am I right?"

Harry slowly nodded.

"Then," Suguro continued with a smirk. "It won't be too much of a problem to prove that the students suddenly failing en masse are her fault."

"I don't like it," Harry decided after a moment of consideration. "Using others like that... it just doesn't sit with me right."

Suguro tapped a fast melody with his fingers, thinking.

"Try to talk it through with that stern lady or Dumbledore before doing anything," he finally said. "But you might try to teach yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you do have a clear instructions in the books? Even with a picture that moves on the side," the exorcist pointed out. "Find a place where nobody can find or follow you and have all the fun you want. Just don't choose anything fancy. Fancy is always bad."

"How come?"

"Remember when I and Moody were having fun?"

"Hard not to," Harry smiled. "I have no idea how many chairs you two destroyed."

"Do you remember the spell he was using to mark me as hit?"

Harry nodded. He and Ron hoped to catch something interesting while Moody and Suguro were going at it and even Hermione was observing the fights with a pen in her hand, but not a single useful spell was cast. Only one, useless charm that temporary changed color of things. It was a first–year material and it was too easy to even be on the exams.

""Red"," he said.

"And what can you tell me about that spell?"

"It leave a red mark on the target? Like somebody spilled a bit of paint, or something like that."

"Anything more?" Suguro raised eyebrows.

"Uh," Harry chewed on his lip, thinking. "It's very short. Much shorter than usual curses, so you have to be really fast to dodge it..."

He blinked.

"You want me to find the shortest spells possible, because this way I won't give anybody time for counter–curses, right?"

"Wizards tend to just stand there and blab nonsense," Suguro shrugged. "While anybody capable of using brain could kill them at least five times."

"That... actually makes sense."

"Try to do the things you're familiar with without saying a word too," Suguro continued. "You don't need to tell your enemy what are you about to do, that's just dumb."

Harry furrowed his brow. "Isn't that what you do?"

"That's exactly what I do," Ryuji grinned. "There's a reason why Aria are always working with a partner."

xxx

"What are you doing up so late?" Draco groaned, when she noticed Zoe creeping into the common room on her toenails. The little girl was trying to not make a noise at all, while imitating some sort of a spy from a book.

Draco himself was up only because he and Pansy were on patrol - and they were supposed to catch first years which were out of their beds at night.

Well, they might have wasted some time in that nice corner, but Draco still felt somewhat offended by missing a first year. Especially that first year who had a serious problem with shutting up for even a minute.

"Um..." Zoe giggled nervously and blushed. "Bathroom break?"

"There are bathrooms in the Slytherin Dungeons," Draco snorted. "Try again."

"Busted," the little girl rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm sort of... bad with telling left and right, okay?"

"So you get absolutely lost in the castle, but asking somebody for directions was beyond you?"

"It was sort of late and Professor Snape told us to not lose any points," she explained.

Draco massaged his temples.

Right. First years and house points. He still remember how every single one was such a big deal when he was her age. For him and everybody else. He probably didn't end up mercilessly pranked inside the Slytherin Dorms only because he caused Gryffindor to lose much more points at the same time.

"This time I'll let it pass," he finally decided.

"Yay!" Zoe jumped into the air with happiness. Then she crossed the distance between them and hugged him. "Thank you!"

"H-hey, hey!" Draco protested. "What's up with you?! Let me go!"

"...I'm trying to gain a favor right now," she explained her actions into his sleeve, then raised her head to look him straight into the eyes. "Did I gained one already, or should I proceed?"

"You cheeky brat!"

"Calling names is not very nice," Zoe pointed out, then continued to rub her face into his robes. "Huh, this is really nice in touch."

"Oh, just let me go already!"

"Favor?"

"Fine," Draco groaned. "Just don't try to use this trick even again!"

Zoe finally backed away with a satisfied smile on her face.

"So, what do you want?"

"I don't you," she pouted. "I have a problem with directions. So I want somebody to have my back if I end up in trouble."

Draco raised eyebrows. It wasn't what he expected. Especially considering how cunning she was and what a nice strategy she used to have him wherever she wanted.

All that, for something stupid like this?

Draco shook his head in amusement. For all her sly planning, Zoe was still childish.

"There are spells for directions, you know?"

"There are?" She gasped, her eyes widened in excitement.

"The most basic one is the "Point me" spell," he continued. "Have you heard about it?"

"Of course!" Zoe said. Then looked away with embarrassed blush on her face. "But I sort of... keep dropping my wand in the middle of it."

"Huh," Draco blinked. "Well, it's still pretty early in the year and you just started. It can't be helped."

"Is there something else?"

"I might charm your robes, but it's... a little bit troublesome," Draco scratched his chin, thinking. "You will need make notes about how to get to the classrooms anyway."

"So... how it will work, exactly?"

"You will need to say out loud where the class you're heading toward is. Full sentence, not something mumbled under your nose," Draco explained. "Then you will feel a small tug on your sleeve, directing you the right way."

"Sounds useful."

"The problem is, at every crossroad you have to tell where the class is located."

"A bit less useful, but still useful," Zoe shrugged.

"It's a spell you usually use when you want to teach kids speak in full sentences," Draco massaged back of his neck. "But it help with finding your way around too."

"I might try it," Zoe said cheerfully. "Just... how much time it is going to take to charm my robes?"

"What, are you telling me that you don't want to waste too much of my time," Draco eyed the clock in a rather theatrical manner. "Now?"

"No, I'm just counting on it to be pretty soon, because this castle is made of madness."

Draco snorted.

"Off to bed," he ordered. "Or I'll be forced to send miss Parkinson to drag you out of the bed tomorrow."

Zoe whined a little, but nonetheless she walked towards where girl's part of the Slytherin Dorms was.

Draco exhaled with relief.

"That," Pansy said, sitting on the sofa next to him. "Was pretty cute. I didn't know you know spells like that one."

"Why do you think I was talking in full sentences when I was four?"

"Oh, don't remind me!" she groaned. "My mother was so angry about me spitting out nonsense that she hired a really nasty teacher the next day!"

"Sorry about that?" Draco chuckled.

"That, you are not," Pansy rolled her eyes. Then moved closer towards him with a mischievous smile.

He raised eyebrow at that action. But it was a nice surprise and they were alone, in the middle of the night.

xxx

Zoe should have been more careful. She knew that even after getting her robes charmed by Draco Malfoy, she still could get lost in the castle easily.

But the thrill was too strong and all the paintings, walking set of old armors all to fascinating to just let them be.

Zoe was just too curious for her own good. And horribly, miserably lost. In the late evening. Again.

"Draco is going to kill me now!" she groaned, desperately looking around searching for something, anything familiar.

But she could be in a whole different magical castle. Even view outside the window seemed to be different.

By all means, Zoe felt bad enough that she actually would ask somebody on the painting for directions, but she was a very unlucky girl today. There was no people in the frames. Pretty clouds, pretty fruits, weird... something, but all the people from the paintings decided to wander off.

Suddenly, there was a noise coming out from behind the corner.

At this point Zoe was resigned, so even if she was to be found by one of the teachers, it still would be a good thing.

"Hello...?" she called, carefully approaching, looking for the source on the noise.

But only after Zoe found it, she discovered it wasn't so good idea after all.

Two Gryffindors were towering over her like giants, big, with wide shoulders and identical faces.

Zoe swallowed. People from all years were warning her and every other firsties to avoid the Weasley twins at all costs.

"Well, well! What do we have here?" The one on the left said, his mouth twisted in not particularly kind smile.

"It looks like a wee little Slytherin to me, Mr. Forge."

"I must agree, Mr. Gred," the other nodded. "What do you think we should do?"

"Oh, I don't know!" the "Gred" twin laughed darkly. "Maybe we're going to paint her some fancy color? Black robes are so overrated..."

"You think she will look good in yellow?" the one called "Forge" tilted his head, like he was considering it seriously. "Besides, it was a long time since we turned anybody into a canary, don't you think?"

"Slytherins do make pretty birds," the other agreed, wand suddenly appearing in his hand. "They always trash around like crazy."

"Ten points for hitting a portrait?"

Zoe looked around, now seeking a way to escape, but the twins already backed her into a corner.

"Weasleys! Should've expected you. Who else would sneak around, scaring little kids?"

Zoe never in her entire life was so happy to hear somebody sneer than she was at this moment.

Draco was standing on the stairs nearby, looking down at the twins.

"Ah!" Forge gasped. "Isn't it the ferret himself?"

"Hadn't wearing fur lately?" the other one snickered.

"And here I was thinking you couldn't fell any lower," Draco winked his nose. "Can't you pick up a fight with somebody who can curse you back at the very least?"

"What, you want in?"

"Or are here to just take off more points from Gryffindor?" the second twin raised his eyebrow. "Though I'm not exactly sure how are you planning to do that, it seems we're all out of points."

"Like you care," Draco huffed, gesturing Zoe to join him on the stairs. She gladly did that, barely keeping herself from beating the distance by running. She didn't want the nasty twins to see how scared she was. She had her pride.

But she decided to hide behind Draco anyway. Pride was important, but Zoe knew that there was a fine line between pride and stupidity.

"And what you are going to do now, then?"

"Try to give us detention?"

They both laughed.

"Zoe," Draco hissed quietly. "Straight up then to the left. Run."

There was no time to ask any questions, so Zoe did what she was told. Well, till the reached the nearest corner. Then she stopped, just for a short moment, to listen if there was any noise coming from down there. But then, she wasn't too sure if silence was a good thing either. She decided that turning back would be a rather stupid thing to do, so she proceed onward with a heavy sigh.

It was so stupid, that finding the right way back to the Slytherin Dungeon was so close for her to find. If only she hadn't called when she heard the twins approaching!

Zoe sniffed. At least she was able to hold a brave face until she returned where only the Slytherins could see her. She dropped on the sofa in the common room, because it was the best spot to observe the entrance. She was not going anywhere until Draco was back. And if he was not going to be back in a short time, Zoe decided she would go talk to Professor Snape.

She curled her legs up, since it was a rather cold day and even with the fire buzzing in the chimney, the floor was still freezing cold.

"And what are you still doing here?"

Zoe jumped, absolutely startled. Moment later, she felt her face burning with embarrassment. Did she fell asleep?

"How many times," Draco, who was perfectly fine and without any additional fur or feathers continued to scold her. "Am I supposed to send you to bed before the message sink?"

"You are fine!" She gasped with a smile. "I was so worried!"

Draco blinked, like she surprised him.

"Look," he said with a sigh. "I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me or any other upper year. We know how to hold our ground against the Weasley twins."

"They are scary."

"They are a menace, but so is that Potter jerk," Draco said. "Just try to not get in their way and you will be fine. Now off to bed with you, tomorrow I'm going to talk to Snape or maybe Umbridge."

Zoe nodded stood up, grimacing as she felt a cold draft on her legs. All she wanted to do now, was to go straight to her dorm and hide under the covers. Partially because she still felt ashamed about causing trouble and partially because she was suddenly dead–tired on her legs.

Only when the doors leading to the girls dorms were closed with a thud, Draco groaned and lowered his head.

He was lucky that they preferred to humiliate him and other well known pureblood in public. Or maybe they recognized that terrifying a little girl was a bit much, even for them. Draco had no idea what would make them to think that turning people into giant birds was funny in the first place. He never could tell what they were planning. Or why.

Draco groaned, longing for the days, when he was not running around the corridors of Hogwarts in the middle of the night, saving little brats from insufferable pranksters.

xxx

Fred and George were sure that Malfoy would go to Snape or maybe Umbridge, demanding some sort of justice from them, even if they were not actually planning to do anything to the Slytherin brat. It was just funny to see kids act like that, shooting eyes all around the place like they were some sort of a rabbit that sniffed out a cat nearby.

They expected Umbridge to produce some new and even more ridiculous set of orders to keep them in check, which would provoke all of Hogwarts to jump right into chaos and madness. The woman was such an easy target they sometimes almost felt bad for picking on her. Almost.

All would be well, if not for Malfoy to go to Ma'am Hojo instead. She fell on their back like pile of the bricks. She was supposed to be one of the good guys, but sometimes – or rather, most of the times – acted like she was completely against Gryffindor.

Like right now.

She was standing a few steps away from them, her back straight and with a stern expression on her face - though that one wasn't different from any other moment. Compared to her McGonagall looked like a very cheerful and easy-going person - holding in her hands a bucket with a two rags and two brushes inside.

Behind her, Filch was almost dancing with happiness.

And behind them was the corridor leading to the Defense Against Dark Arts Office, where Umbridge was residing. Currently, the place was a complete mess. Somebody had the found idea of drenching several meters of it in dungbombs and then, stricken by a moment of genius, added a bunch of Weasleys joke products. The result was a moody goo covering not only the floor, but almost half of the walls too. The smell alone was repulsing.

"What do you mean, without a wand?" Fred asked, feeling that he really didn't want to hear the answer.

"That mean you are going to clean all this mess by hand," Ma'am Hojo said coldly. "Since you appear to fell disregard for honest, hard work, you need to learn firsthand."

Filch made a small, happy noise and was almost jumping in one place with an excitement.

George could swear, that there was a camera in his ragged bag.

"But... it stinks!"

"I'm under the impression that it was the general idea behind this prank?" she raised eyebrows.

"But it's not ours!"

"Well, then you are simply unlucky," Mamushi said and clapped her hands. "Proceed, we don't have a whole day to waste just standing here."

Filch pulled out the camera. It looked like the one that belonged to this funny little kid that followed Harry since the second year. There was even possibility it was exactly the same one, since thanks to Umbridge all sorts of things was taken from the students in the name of keeping them away from bad influences.

Fred and George looked at each other, then grabbed the brushes.

xxx

Ron sniffed and then sniffed some more, frowning. When he walked into the common room, hoping that he would bump into somebody who had the Herbology homework already done - preferably Neville - he expected it to smell like any other time. Actually he never paid attention to how the common room smelled like. It was just a room. With a bunch of teenagers in it. But this time the odor was weird. Almost like lemons, but not quite, with a distant aroma of dungbombs in the mix.

He followed his nose, deciding he was curious enough to check it out, even if the experience was opposing the actions. He was living with his brother long enough to know, that anything unusual at all, even an innocent toast on the place, could end up nasty.

The trail led straight to his brothers.  
Who were lying on the ground and not bothering to move an inch even when he was standing right over them.

"Uh," Ron blinked, then carefully, slowly, kicked George on the side. "Guys? Are you alright?"

"Let us be," Fred groaned.

"The carpet is comfortable," George agreed.

"What in the Merlin's...?"

"They had a detention," Lee Jordan explained, looking at the twins with a concern painted on his face. "They barely got back and when they did, they dropped here."

"Detention?" Ron gasped. "What it was this time? What that pink toad came up with? What she did to them?"

"It wasn't Umbridge," George groaned.

"Then who? And what's with you? Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing?"

"Aw," Fred chuckled. "That's cute. Ronniekins worried about us!"

"I would laugh if I had the strength for it," George agreed. "It was that Hojo person. She made us clean."

"Clean?" Ron blinked.

"Without a wand. A whole corridor," Fred groaned, then prepped himself up on the elbow and looker around the common room. "Now who had the bright idea to mess up the corridor next to the Umbridge's room?"

Lee Jordan gulped and carefully, slowly stepped back.

Lucky for him, the twins decided it was a good time to continue their story. "Filch got himself a camera. At some point we were afraid that he will set it on fire, shooting one photo after another!"

"His dreams came true, I reckon," Ron muttered. "But blimey, guys! You look completely ragged!"

"It's about right," George nodded. "We definitely feel ragged."

"Let's all make a mental note," Fred continued. "That we should avoid that Hojo chick at all costs. She's insane!"

Ron felt tempted to go to the Filch office and beg the man to share one or two of his precious new photos, just to send it to mom. She definitely would enjoy something like that. It would made a perfect memoir from the twins time at Hogwarts, even more precious one than all the accomplishments the oldest three of Weasleys managed to gather during they stay at school.

But the twins would never forgive him and call it all-out war, or something like that.

So he just backed away, promising to treasure the memory.

"They deserved it, you know," Hermione said later in the evening, when they were finishing homework.

"But cleaning all of it, by hand?" Ron shuddered at the mere thought. "We have wands for something!"

"And Muggle's don't," she merely shrugged.

"Don't tell me you agree with her! It was totally unfair! It wasn't even their prank!"

"So?" she merely raised eyebrows and continued to skimming through her book. "They made a mess more than once. It's about time for them to learn how hard is to keep this place clean."

"Bt this is what House E-" he stopped, noticing her icy glare. "I guess I'm going to shut up now?"

"You better be," Hermione said and returned to making notes.

Xxx

"Darling?" Undersecretary Umbridge hurried towards her with a sweet, small smile on her mouth. She stopped a few meters into the room, though, unsure how she was supposed to act around this place. Mamushi learned long ago that the small shrine was putting almost everyone on the edge. Apparently all you needed to freak people out was a small, open cabinet a few sticks of incense and a Buddha statue. "Could we have a little chat?"

"Of course," Mamushi stood up from the altar and bowed slightly towards the woman. Then she straightened up and barked. "Elf!"

Immediately, a little creature showed up in front of her, awaiting commands.

"We require tea," Mamushi said, not even looking at the House-elf. "And do make the table comfortable for my guest!"

With a quiet pop the elf disappeared.

"This way," she gestured, inviting the woman further inside.

The elves were fast enough to switch her low table for one of the European style and set up chairs by it. When they were sitting down, the teapot and elegant, porcelain cups with a pretty rose patterns showed up. A moment later, a platter full of biscuits joined them.

Mamushi nodded shortly in approval.

"You keep them on a short leash, I see," the short woman murmured with approval.

"That what they are for," she just shrugged. "Are they not?"

"Oh, yes, indeed!" Ms. Umbridge nodded enthusiastically. "You wouldn't believe how many people treat them like they were humans!"

"That's idiotic," Mamushi snorted. "And offensive."

She was telling the truth and if the witch in pink understood her wrongly... Well, Mamushi was a foreigner here, after all. It was expected of her to not have the best way with the words. They talked a bit, exchanging meaningless sentences, before the older woman finally decided to tell her what she wanted.

"I must ask," Umbridge said, after she added unholy amount of sugar to her tea and stirred it with a silver spoon. "Why you decided to give the Weasley both that sort of punishment, my dear."

"It seemed appropriate," Mamushi said keeping her face blank. "They are the source of misery in this school, are they not?"

"Oh!" Umbridge put the spoon down. "They do have a certain reputation, that is sure! But still, cleaning by hand... it just doesn't seem right, to force a wizard into a manual labor, like a Muggle!"

The woman shook her head energetically, like even thinking about the whole situation disturbed her greatly.

"I might not fully understand your customs," Mamushi explained and bowed her head slightly. "For that I am sorry. But it appears that a small lesson in humidity would do them good. Especially considering their family... decision."

"What do you mean, my dear?" Ms. Umbridge chirped sweetly, instantly forgetting about being offended.

"Since they are..." Mamushi stopped as if she was looking for the right word. "Friendly with the bad-blood, they should learn where exactly is their place. Is it not right?"

"Oh, certainly!" Umbridge covered her mouth with fingers when she chuckled. "I do agree, I really do! But sadly, we still can do nothing with the situation. Muggleborns are forcing they way through, demanding change in customs, abandoning traditions. Always demanding, never trying to understand!"

Mamushi nodded, listening to the rant.

"This is sad, really," she said, when Umbridge finally stopped, probably only to catch her breath. "But the Muggleborns seems to be even more oblivious towards your culture than I am."

Umbridge nodded enthusiastically.

"It is a shame that you are so occupied teaching these children Defense and putting this place back in order," Mamushi sighed sadly. "Because somebody with your experience surely could teach all these miserable kids how the Magical World really works."

Umbridge hummed, deep in thought. She sipped her tea, before speaking. "Actually, this is a sound idea, my dear. Somebody ought to tell these children how the society works, but people like Dumbledore are too afraid that the Muggleborn will decide to not join the magical world at all. Can you imagine?"

"No," Mamushi said. "That would be ridiculous. There is nothing in the muggle world that could possibly rival the magical one."

xxx

"Hey, Suguro," Harry asked lazily in one late October evening. "Do you think I should start a secret society centered around learning how to fight other wizards and breaking school rules?"

Ryuji blinked, completely dumb folded. "What." Was all he had to say.

"I mean," Harry continued lazily. "Umbridge is not going to teach us anything at all. And it is kinda cool to get my butt smacked by Mamushi, but I'm worried about others. There are a lot of Muggleborn kids around and the Death Eaters might try to hunt them down..."

"So you want to at least give them a fighting chance?" Suguro guessed.

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "Pretty much that."

"This is a good idea," he said after a moment of consideration. "But risky. Do you have a place in mind?"

"Well, right now me, Hermione and Ron are just hanging around empty classrooms. There's loads of them here," Harry explained.

"But you're just a group of friends hanging around," Suguro shook his head. "You are talking about something, that could very quickly escalate to something much bigger than one classroom would suffice. No mention to keeping the whole ordeal secret from Umbridge. Mamushi can help you only so much."

"Yeah," Harry sighed. "But where else I could do something like that?"

"You told me once about that fancy chamber where you killed a basilisk."

"The Chamber of Secrets?!" Harry gasped.

"Well, nobody is going to get inside without your permission," Suguro smirked. "And with that map of yours, you can safely get people in and out without anybody seeing."

"Huh," Harry massaged his scalp. "This could actually work."

"Just before you ask anybody to go with you... go grab that friendly elf of yours and ask him to help you clean down there. There's no need for kids to bump into a very dead basilisk."

Harry shuddered at the mere thought. The basilisk was really giant and really dead. For over two years. It was also very damp down there, so the stench must be unimaginable by now. Unless the venom killed all the bacteria's around, but then they would have a whole new sort of a problem down there.

Asking Dobby for help would be definitely a good idea, house elves were always astonishing when it came to banishing all sorts of trash. He will just have warn Dobby to be very, very careful, because it might still be poisonous.

"You need to have a plan how to get people in and out of there," Ryuji continued. "And some tricks up your sleeve for emergencies."

"Yeah," he nodded. "It would suck to get stuck down there."

"Maybe try to talk to Sirius about making a copy of the map?" Ryuji proposed. "He dealt with the mirrors nicely. You could hang the map down in the Chamber, charm in bigger on something, so everybody could have an eye on it."

"You think he's going to agree?"

"He will jump at any chance to get out of morning jogging," Ryuji snickered. "Mbali is running him ragged."

"I still can't get used to the new looks," Harry shook his head. "And the self–tanning cream is starting to show too."

"That's good," Suguro said. "Nobody is going to expect Sirius Black to look like... well."

"Are you going to add an Hawaiian shirt to the whole image too?"

"It might be an overkill," Suguro grimaced. "But I doubt he will have anything against it. The clothes, he actually enjoys. It is Mbali, who he don't like."

"She took him to the doggy hairdresser," Harry pointed out.

Xxx

Entering the Chamber of Secrets happened to be much more complicated than it was the last time. Not the sneaking into the girl's bathroom part. That one went just fine. Besides, they had years of practice in wandering into places they were not supposed to be. No, the problem was slightly different.

Harry was standing in the front of the sink with discreet snake emblem on it, with Hermione and Ron a few steps behind and nothing was going on. No matter how many times he tried to concentrate and recall the ability to speak in tongue different than English, he just kept saying things that his friends could understand.

"I don't get it!" Harry groaned with irritation, smacking the sides of the sink. "Why this isn't working?!"

"I think we should talk about it with Professor Dumbledore," Hermione said, furrowing her brows. "Abilities like that should just appear and disappear as they please."

"You were doing everything as usual, right?" Ron nudged him on the side.

"Yes," Harry forced himself to not growl at his friend. It still came out much more harsh than he expected, but he felt like he was boiling on the inside. They were so very close! "I was doing exactly the same thing I did two years ago. Looking at the snake and talking to it. But now the Parseltongue just don't want to turn on!"

"Hey, don't take it out on me, mate!"

Harry suddenly felt really stupid. He didn't want to blow up at Ron like that, especially since it wasn't his fault.

"Sorry," he sighed, his anger swallowed up by embarrassment.

Ron just nodded with a small shrug of his shoulders. "Anyhow, do you know when you stopped talking to the snakes?"

"Uh..." Harry blinked. "I never really tried to find a snake to talk to. You know, after the whole issue with it being a stuff of Dark Lords and so on? It was the last thing I wanted to do."

"Sounds understandable," Hermione smiled slightly and Ron patted him on the shoulder. "But he is right. Pinpointing the timeline could tell us what exactly caused you to stop being a Parseltongue. And we should better get out of here."

"Yeah," both boys agreed. "It would be awkward to get a detention for hanging out in a girl's loo."

They quickly walked out of the restroom and then away from the second floor with the help of the Marauders Map. Right now they hadn't time to deal with Filch, or, Merlin forbid, Umbridge herself.

They quickly found nice and empty classroom, far away from the nasty woman.

"You think here is safe to talk?" Hermione asked, looking at the map.

"I don't see any portraits to blab about us to anyone," Ron mumbled and looked at the map. "Here we're all clear too, but I don't know."

"So," Hermione carefully cleaned up one of the chairs with a hand chief. Then she looked like she was about to smack herself over the head and used magic to banish the rest of the dirt. "What was the last time you remember talking to a snake? Or hearing it?"

"Straight to the point, huh?" Ron muttered.

"Well, Ronald, we need all the facts, so we - or just Harry - can ask Professor Dumbledore the right questions and get the answers as soon as possible."

He shuddered. "Don't "Ronald" me!" he whined. "My mum is always doing that and it's always a bad sign! A really bad one!"

While they were bickering, Harry was deep in thoughts, trying to recall all the events when he talked to snakes. There was the second year, of course and during his third, he was trying to avoid even looking at snake emblem on Slytherin quest.

"During the fourth year," he started slowly. "I had that dream with an old man listening on Voldemort and Wormtail talking. He died, because the snake ratted him out."

"Yeah, I think I remember you telling us about that one," Ron nodded.

"Then, during the vacations this year I had a lot of nasty dreams," he sighed. "The snake, same snake, was showing up and I still could understand it. But I stopped having these dreams, after-" his eyes widened.

Hermione gasped, realizing the same thing too. There was only one thing that could possibly cause a change like that.

"Dear God, Harry... I might be wrong, but I think that the Parseltongue... it wasn't your ability. It was the ability of the thing on your forehead."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **Hi there! Sorry for being late with this chapter, but if you checked my profile page, then you probably already know that my computer decided to give me some trouble. It still isn't in the greatest shape, but I hope that I won't be forced to repeat the experience of clicking out a missing pieces in the chapter. That was beyond annoying. An old type mouse is not a writing tool of the year, let me assure you.

**Chapter 12**  
**The Joys of Teaching**

A few days after the beginning of the September, Sirius walked into the sitting room with a triumphant smile on his face and a small mirror wrapped in cheap, plastic case.

"I did it!" His grin widened even more as he waved the pink item around. "The mirror is working like a charm!"

"You did not just said that," Moody groaned. He was already having a migraine and for a good reason too - he was the one stuck in the same room with Molly Weasley and the exorcist for quite awhile and they still were unable to keep a decent conversation without starting to argue about dumb little things every five minutes.

It was a painful experience - one Moody definitely would wish upon his enemies - but there wasn't much else to do than to sit there and try once again explain to the stubborn woman that the kids should learn how to use what they had at their disposal even if it was a stinky, man-eating monster. Luckily, the woman actually had a dinner to cook and no one to banish her from the kitchen since Rin was gone, so he could rest for at least a moment from her constant screeching.

Black was actually a very nice thing to see, since the attention instantly moved towards him and away from all that stuff that triggered Mrs. Weasley's dark side.

"Did what?" Sirius blinked. "I told you I can work out how the communication-"

"I was talking about the joke," Alastor explained.

"Don't spoil my fun, I was waiting for ages for a chance to say that one!"

"It was a very bad joke," Suguro decided against pinching the bridge of his nose just yet. Knowing the wizards and how different they were from his people, he will have many more reasons for doing just that before the day ends. He was becoming afraid of having a permanent bruises just below his eyebrows. Wizards and reasons... they just didn't get along very well. Instead, Ryuji decided to concentrate on the actually important thing.

"Have you already tested the mirror?"

"Yup!" came the enthusiastic answer. "And since now I actually know what I'm doing, I can replicate it much faster. The trickiest part of the whole deal was to connect that thing to more than one other mirror..."

Sirius kept rambling and Suguro just let him. Even if the kid had no idea what exactly the man was babbling about, he seemed to be happy letting him do so. Alastor shared the sentiment; happy was much better than Back's usual self even if it was annoying.

"That's good," Suguro nodded. "It also meaning that I should be leaving soon."

"What," Alastor snorted. "You have enough off magic?"

Suguro snorted. "More like I have to return to my life at some point."

Rin already did that, a day before Mamushi and the kids left for Hogwarts. He promised to show up again as soon as he could. Through, considering how pissed off his brother was about the whole thing, it was going to take awhile. You can't simply disappear from Yukio's Okumura radar and get away with it. Suguro already heard his deal from the younger of the twins and expected to find his mailbox filled with very angry messages about irresponsibility and other things.

"A shame," Sirius mumbled, suddenly losing his wide grin. "It was quite fun, you know. Even if it didn't start that well."

"I don't think you should spend more time in here either."

"Well, duh," Sirius rolled his eyes. "It's not like I asked to be an escaped convict. Or just a convict. It just happened and I kinda shouldn't show my face outside."

"I'm pretty sure you told me once about escaping someplace far away," Suguro pointed out raising an eyebrow at Sirius.

"Well, yeah," The man said with a shrug. "But then the whole mess here started... I couldn't just leave Harry all alone. Even if I'm not doing anything..."

Harry out of this whole deal was getting only a whole bunch of stressing out about his Godfather and his fate, but Ryuji decided to keep his mouth shut for the time being. An argue seemed to not be what he was looking for.

"You suspect that someone knows about his dog form?"

"Nobody knows for sure," Alastor grimaced. "But as much as I would like to talk shit about Malfoy and the rest of his merry cousins, stupid they're not."

"Well, they could be expecting Sirius to hang out with you people..."

"...where is this one going?"

"Do you think they are going to look among the Muggles for him?"

"Huh?" Alastor blinked. "He's still a wanted criminal, you know!"

"Last time I checked dogs aren't considered criminals," Suguro shrugged. "Sure, not being able to talk to people is not going to be fun, but I think it beats the current situation."

"You want to take him with you?" Stating the obvious usually was a pretty stupid thing to do, but in a situation like that... Alastor wanted to know everything there was to know, since Black himself couldn't be trusted when it came to his very own well-being. Mostly because his fate was connected to the fate of the Entire Order of Phoenix - so if something happened to cause him spill the beans, the spill will hurt the entire magical world. The exorcist was a nice kid and all, Alastor also would admit that he knew how to fight, but no sane person would trust someone why their knew for a bit over two weeks.

"Well, we do need to stay in contact and exchange information somehow," Suguro explained. "While the mirrors are helpful and all, a contact with real person beats it."

"Besides, we got one of yours, so you want one of ours," Moody snickered. The exorcist was actually right, but still. He wasn't telling them everything. And Alastor wanted to hear it all. "Isn't it right?"

"My," Suguro raised eyebrows. "You're never going to stop amazing me."

"You didn't say I'm wrong," Alastor grinned. "So you do want to exchange hostages! And check how some other things about us, too."

"You're going too far with it!" Sirius hissed at him.

Alastor rolled his eyes. The exorcist literally throw a bone to the dog and not the idiot was growling at everyone who wanted to check if the surprise gift wasn't going to hurt him.

"No, let him talk," Ryuji said, waving at Sirius to shut up. "It's pretty entertaining like that. Please, do continue, old man."

"This is also a morality check for us," Moody decided to obey. He was curious how close to the truth his guesses were. "Black here is in quite special situation. It wouldn't do us any good if someone discovered that we're actually chummy with each other. On the other hand he's one of us and we can't just let him to his fate if he stepped into something nasty even if it would be the most logical thing to do."

If Black got caught either by the Muggle Police or the Auror forces, the Order of Phoenix would be forced to at least try and save his sorry skin. And doing so would portray them not as what they were, but as a bunch of criminals that were dead set of saving a sociopathic murderer. Something like that would win the war Voldemort didn't even started to fight yet.

"The point is, you don't want logical. You want us emotional and stupidly good and helping out Sirius is your way of checking out if we really are the good guys in this whole mess."

The truth was, the Order Suguro was working for didn't care for the magical world. For all they care, the wizards could kill each other until no man was standing. Alastor had a weird feeling that it actually would be a preferred outcome. For someone who was fighting demons, dealing with magic would be too much of a bother, after all.

"What I want, is for you to trust me," Suguro said after a short moment of silence. "But not to blindly follow whatever I say. I don't have power to shield you from all the dangers that are going to come from my side of things, human or otherwise."

"Good," Moody nodded. "We're no children."

"Hey!" Sirius waved a hand, calling the attention back to himself. "I'm the one going on a trip, not you!"

"So, you're going?" Alastor raised eyebrows.

"Sure I am!" Black grinned. "Where else we're going to learn what exactly we're dealing with than at the very source of it?"

And there was that. Not even a few moments of doubt during packing the bags, since a dog, no matter how big, didn't need things like a fresh change of clothes. Besides, the closest to leaving the old mansion, the more enthusiastic Black was becoming over the whole idea.

"You sure you want to do that?"

Suguro smiled.

xxx

"This is going to be very awkward and possibly very loud," Ryuji warned the big black dog that followed him. Somewhat on the border of breaking the law, since people were supposed to walk their dogs on the leash instead of letting them roam free.

Sirius only gave him a dog-style smile, because he was waiting for this moment. He was curious about the not so usual Muggles and their ways. He was also curious about people who dared to scream at someone like Suguro who weren't Mamushi. That lady was just plain scary and Sirius felt deeply for all the kids at Hogwarts that now were doomed to deal with her as one of the teachers.

From the outside, the place the exorcists were hanging out looked very underwhelming. It looked so... Muggle and normal. It was a two store building, but not old like the Grimmauld Mansion - it looked more like a box than anything else, standing among other, very similar box-like buildings on both sides of the street.

Not that Sirius had anything against Muggle-style boring neighborhood. In his eyes everything was better than that annoying better than thou style old magical families were so fond of. Besides, the building had numbers on them so it wasn't like he was going to mix them up. Unless drunk, but being an escaped convict and drunk weren't a very good things to mix together unless there was a death wish involved.

The inside looked as boring as the outside, unless you were carefully looking round for certain things. Like the things around the doors and windows that for anyone not on the whole thing looked like someone just tried to fancy up their house with some cheap but curiously looking wallpaper. Or chunks of it. Sirius was pretty sure there was more of hidden seals under the boring carpet that had seen better days and quite some time ago too. Sirius was pretty sure that the carpet was blue, but being a dog kind of screwed with his perception of colors. It was still much better from the horror James went through, suddenly forced to learn how to deal with re-learning how to see the world when eyes were on the sides of his scull instead of the more human-like place.

The lowest floor smelled like lots of people were constantly moving all around it. It was also hard to not spot the signs of human presence. A dirty cup with dried up dregs inside here, a newspaper there, a small pile of books with paper scraps in between the pages on the kitchen counter, a jacket messily left on one of the chairs. The place was filled with little things like that.

If Sirius had a way of talking as a dog, he definitely would say it looked quite homey. But he hadn't, so he was stuck as a mere observer of what was going to happen.

Sirius wasn't sure what he expected of the exorcist, but a middle-aged man on the rather short and a bit of chubby side - the small, while dot of a collarino was the only thing that actually fit into what Sirius was imagining. Well, that and the royally pissed off expression on the man's face.

Sirius gulped.

Suguro seemed to be much more resistant for stuff like that, or maybe he was just used to this kind of a glade, because he only sighed.

"I'm home," he said. It sounded like he was trying to say something else, but caught himself in time.

"Finally," the man grunted. "What the hell were you thinking, going all chubby with people that kidnapped you?!"

"...we were over that one, weren't we?"

"Doesn't change the fact that I'm still pissed at you!" The answer came instantly. Then the older exorcist looked at Sirius, who whined and tried to hide behind Suguro. It wasn't working too well, since his Animagus form was on the big side and big chunk of his butt was clearly visible from behind the Japanese guy.

"And the hell is that?!" The man gestured towards Sirius' furry shape. "Did you decided to adopt a pet on your way back here?!"

"Actually..." Suguro bit his lip. Then explained the whole situation anyway.

"A dog," the older exorcist decided to sum up all of the revelations. "Is an escaped convict that police was wasting their time on."

"Yeah, more or less that," Suguro sighed. "I don't like it either, but it's not like we can call the press and tell them that the real murderer was the one turning into a rat."

"...and you dragged him here because?"

"You do want to know what you're dealing with, don't you?" Suguro smiled. "Mr. Black here is from the same old family that got the fancy library filled with books. During writing my reports I only scratched the surface..."

Sirius blinked, not paying attention anymore. Not because the conversation was boring - it was his fate there, so it couldn't be boring - but because his brain stopped dead. Just when the young exorcist managed to put his hands on the books, dark, dark books in the library and why no one was aware of it? That stuff was unpredictable and just plain dangerous and the Orde of Phoenix was supposed to keep kids and guests as far away from that stuff as possible!

He really, really wanted to turn back into human and demand answers in this very moment, but that would be a stupid thing to do. There were windows, they were on the ground floor and it was middle of the day, so people were outside and people could take a peek at what was going inside. While his photo from two years ago wasn't too actual anymore - Sirius got rid of those blasted long hair, shaved his beard off and put some weight on, but someone could still recognize him. Getting jailed now, when there were Death Eaters not only on the loose but, pulling strings at the Ministry of Magic itself would be a bad, bad idea.

So Sirius had to be satisfied with voicing his opinion by growling at Suguro.

The bastard only shrugged, with one of his eyebrows slightly raised... Sirius really wanted to bit his ankle right now.

Meanwhile the two exorcists still argued with each other, mostly about how inconvenient hiding an escaped convict was and how it could end for the whole lot of them.

Then Sirius saw a pair of legs walking into the room. Well, legs were what he could see, because no matter what big his Animagus form was, it was still a dog and Sirius still had to look up if he wanted to look at people. So, a pair of legs. Long, perfectly formed with dark shiny skin. Sirius raised his head to see that Muggle tendency of wearing very short shorts was the most brilliant idea ever. But the people here were aware that he wasn't just a dog, so he couldn't spend the next half of an hour staring at some woman's butt.

A shame.

"So, the dog is the guy?" She said, eyeing Sirius.

The woman had a voice fitting her perfect form. Was she an exorcist too? She kind of had to, hanging out with these two, but once again - she was not what Sirius expected exorcist to looks like. He probably had to get used to that feeling.

"The dog is the guy," Suguro nodded.

"Well, if they are looking, then they are looking for a black dog sticking to some wizards are they not?"

"I guess it would be quite hard for them to comprehend the idea of hiding among the non-magical people," Suguro shrugged. "Why? You have some idea?"

"It depends," the woman smiled, her dark eyes not leaving Sirius for the shortest of moment. "Is your doggy form depending on how you looks in real life...?"

That one, innocent question lead Sirius to a world of pure horror of make-over muggle style, because his Animagus form was influenced by how he looked like a human - after escaping the Azkaban his dog form looked like something that crawled out of the trash bin, all thin with dirty messed up fur and all, while now Sirius looked somewhat decent.

"They definitely are not going to look for a yellow dog, are they?"

And so doggy-hair dresser happened. It was a true stuff of nightmares but he walked out of that looking definitely not like himself. Which theoretically speaking was a good thing.

Upon returning back to... whatever the exorcists' place was called, Sirius found himself dragged down to the basement. Which was quite unnerving because dragging someone to the basement wasn't among the things Sirius counted among the "let's be friends!" stuff.

Luckily, there was no prison or torture chamber underground. Well, not one of the traditional sort. However, Sirius could spot random muggle devices set down in the big, surprisingly bright room underground.

Among all that stuff, Sirius was only able to recognize a set of mattresses and a set of weights. And there was something that looked like a bicycle without wheels.

"This is not perfect," the woman - Mbali, as Sirius learned during the trip to the land of nightmares, said. "But we at least can talk here. And check out if the hair-dye is going to stick around when you switch between the bodies."

It did.

It also wasn't as good of a thing as he expected it to be. She snorted.

"Blond is definitely not your color."

"Oh, har har!" Sirius groaned, pulling on his hair to actually see the color. He had to agree with Mbali, this definitely wasn't his thing. It even wasn't a honest shade of blonde, it was that annoying, bright chicken-like shade that could make anyone looks like an idiot.

"It wouldn't be that bad if he wasn't pastry-pale," the older exorcist commented.

"You try to spend thirteen years in a prison and don't get pale," Sirius huffed.

"Don't worry, lad, we can deal with that no problem," he looked at Mbali. "There are cosmetics for getting a nice tan without walking out of the house, right?"

She stared back at him for a very long, very awkward moment. "...why are you looking at me?"

The man walked right into it and Sirius watched with satisfaction as Mbali proceed to voice her opinion about the whole situation.

Then Mbali ended up as a person to introduce him to the stinky concoction that was supposed to improve his skin color.

Apparently, the bunch of exorcists decided to change Sirius into something they called a jock and they seemed to be trying really hard to keep him from getting the joke.

xxx

Harry wasn't sure how much time has passed, but some of it definitely did. He just couldn't move, or think or do whatever, his mind in inner turmoil about the whole issue.

"You think?" he shuddered. The mere thought that he shared more than just a little bit of skin tissue on his forehead with the frightening wraith was repulsing. However, no matter how awful it was, Harry had a nasty feeling that Hermione was totally and absolutely right. The wraith of Voldemort that was stuck in his scar up until recently did more to him than just using him as a hidey-hole. What else that thing had changed inside of him?

"I really don't think he wanted to share it with you," Hermione shook her head. "Your scar, that ability... it was all an accident on his part. He never expected it to end in such way as it did."

"I really need to ask Dumbledore about that," Harry sighed. "But it might be it, Hermione. As long as he was inside my head - so to speak - I could use the Parseltongue and talking to snakes was his thing. But after he's gone... nothing. Na da. Damn, just when it could actually be useful!"

It was so wrong, to consider something that possibly spilled over- or maybe not – from the chunk of soul of somebody as evil as Voldemort to actually be useful, but Harry didn't have any other words to describe it. He needed that blasted ability. He avoided using it for two years, trying to forget about the Basillisk and everyone shunning him away. He wished for it to disappear… and so it did. Just when it actually could be of some use.

"Hey, man," Ron put hand on his shoulder. "Don't sweat it. It's a good thing that you no longer have that bugger with you. Even if we can't go downstairs, we still can find someplace else."

"What about Ma'am Hojo?" Hermione suddenly said.

"What about her?" Ron looked at her.

"Well, she is summoning snakes... snake-like creatures all the time," the girl explained. "I don't know about the beings exorcists works with, but if you can use Parseltongue to talk to a sink..."

"Then you think a spirit could help me?"

"We can at least try. I mean, the language is just a language. With a bit of hard work I think we could at least try to learn hiss the simple commands."

"Hiss the commands?" Ron shook his head. "But… how do you say something you don't understand?"

"Do you understand what the spells actually mean, Ron?" Hermione tilded her head with a knowing smirk.

He blinked.

"They're uh… a bunch of syllables that make magic happen?"

Harry managed to not snort out loud. Which was a good thing. Partially because it would annoy Ron and partially because they were still in awfully dusty classroom. Breathing too deeply, exhaling too strongly – it would lead to a whole world of trouble.

"The spells are actually words. Changed, sometimes because the way we speak is different than how it was centuries ago and sometimes because long research proved that twisting something would improve the spell," Hermione started explaining, choosing her words carefully. At least she was aware that she was a few steps from the full encyclopedic rant they wouldn't be able to understand all that well. "Anyhow, every spell has it beginning with a single word. We are using mostly the Latin ones, the reason for it is further explained in the History book for N.E.W.T.s levels…"

"…so, okay, they are words," Ron shrugged. "And?"

"You don't know these words, Ronald, " she explained with a slight annoyance noticeable in her voice. "But you are still able to cast the spells which mean that you are able to pronounce the unfamiliar word well enough for it to work. Which mean…"

"…That we can do the same thing with the Parseltongue," Ron finished for her. Then looked at Harry and back at Hermione. "You think we can do that? I mean, sure, Latin, but Latin is just a language. Parseltongue is a magical language. How do we know the rules are the same?"

This time Hermione was the one blinking in surprise, but she pulled herself together pretty quickly. "Fair point, " she said with a sharp nod. "But we won't be able to tell that until we try it out, right?"

xxx

The safest way to talk to somebody who wasn't among Gryffindor students without raising suspicions of Professor Umbridge - especially when you needed to talk to the unusual addition to the staff - was to get in trouble.

Harry had no idea that getting a detention when one actually wanted it was so difficult. Especially since he couldn't just work out one tactic and repeat it over and over again. There was also the risk of getting a detention with somebody else. He already scrubbed stuff for Mr. Filch twice and was starting to get irritated.

The problem was, Filch liked Miss Hojo. They had similar opinions about hard work and how people should treat it with respect and she wasn't prone to repair all the problems by wand, so she gained his respect and the man decided he will get all the nasty brats out of her way, handing detentions quicker than she could react. Sometimes it looked almost like he moved from creeping in the dark corners to openly stalking the students, hoping to catch them in the act.

Because of that, there was no way Harry could get a detention from the right person for throwing a curse in the general direction of Malfoy or something like that. The situation called for far less subtle actions. Harry needed to ask about the snake language… and something else. Since the discovery they made, Harry couldn't banish the dark thoughts that filled his mind. An exorcist, former or not, seemed like just the right person to ask about how much of him was actually him and what was twisted and nurtured under the darkness that his in his scar.

So Harry gulped and used the first opportunity, when he still hadn't too much time to think things through; Mamushi was a terrifying person and he really didn't want to get on her bad side. When she passed him in one of the corridors, shortly after lessons, Harry bumped into her, hard.

Mamushi pushed him away, but had enough sense - or maybe just lost her balance for a moment - to not smash him into a wall nearby. Because she totally was able to do that, Harry could feel it rather well; her hands were like made of steel.

"Mr. Potter!" Ms. Hojo thundered at him, raising her voice for all to hear. "What is the meaning of this?!"

"Uh..." he scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry?"

He made a movement like he was about to leave, when she grabbed him. By the ear, naturally. What was with that woman and the ears?

"Ow!" Harry protested. "What the heck? Let go...!"

"Were you seriously going to leave like that?" Ms. Hojo said loudly.

Somebody snickered behind Harry. He supposed the situation might have look quite funny when you were not the one dragged by the ear around.

Mamushi led him towards the nearest corner and positioned him so he faced the wall. Now this was embarrassing. The fact that he clearly heard fight-pitched laughter of Umbridge wasn't helping at all. Or it was. It worked just like they planned it to do so, but the theory was one thing and bringing it to life was so much more uncomfortable than he expected it to be!

"And stand there, thinking about what you have done wrong!" she growled at him. "You have a detention with me too!"

"You sure have a great way with children, my dear!" Umbridge chirped to Mamushi.

Harry couldn't see her face, but the tone of her voice told him everything he needed to know. The nasty woman found the whole situation to be absolutely hilarious and she definitely approved.

"Since he decided to act like a child, he shall be treated like one," Ms. Hojo said, then her attention turned back towards Potter. "Tomorrow is a Saturday, so you have all day free. Or you had, until now."

"But..." Harry started to protest. She was taking it a bit too far. He liked his weekends. He had quidditch to worry about, homework to do and some free time would be nice thing to have too…

"Oh, and here goes another Saturday of yours!"

After that, Harry decided to stay silent.

At least now, he thought bitterly, there will be no problem with getting a detention from Miss Hojo. On the contrary. He was going to have so many detentions, that he probably should count the Saturdays among the normal schooldays. That sucked. He was going to be left with only Sunday's to do all of his homework, unless he cave in and join Hermione in her daily sittings in the Library.

xxx

Mamushi was not impressed with the request.

Harry showed up at the Saturday detention with a determined expression on his face and as soon as the woman asked Dobby to make sure the room was safe, started to talk.

"You," Ms. Hojo said after he finished. "Are being stupid."

"Why?" Harry groaned. "Nobody else even know where the Chamber is! That is perfect for meeting like we have planned!"

"I'm not talking about your place of choosing," she winkled her nose. "I am merely speaking about your sudden inability to speak."

Harry groaned. "I explained it, the piece of his soul is no longer on my forehead, so I lost the ability..."

"This is just a language, Potter," the woman hissed. "Unless you had a stroke you forgot to mention till now, I see no reason for you to not remember how to use it."

"Magic?" he muttered, raising single eyebrow. Moment later he really regretted that he didn't bit his tongue instead. The glare she send him was truly freezing.

"Language," she said. "To recognize words as words and not meaningless jabber, your brain is creating a certain pattern that help to recognize. While I admit, you were doing all you could to not use the ability to speak with snakes up until now, the pattern still should be there. Half-buried, but still under your skull somewhere."

Harry blinked.

His memory was rather fuzzy, but he remembered his aunt chatting with one of the neighbors about some curious case. An old person lost in the woods apparently forget his native language, but was perfectly capable of talking in French, or something like that. It was weird, so he remembered it, because times when his family was talking about unusual stuff were very rare.

Maybe Ms. Hojo was right and there was something he still could do.

"It's still a magical language," That was what Hermione said. "I never learned it or anything, it just was in my head from the beginning. Or at least since the scar… You really think it would work the same?"

"Magic is something that can bend the laws of physics and twist what we perceive as the reality," Ms. Hojo said with a small nod. "But it can't ignore these laws completely. Magic is still a part of this world and because of that it is using what's available around, instead of creating a whole new thing."

"You seems to be awfully sure of that for someone who only learned about this whole stuff a month ago," Harry furrowed his brow. "But it kind of make sense. Like, you can't just create a needle in the Transmutation class, you need the match or something like it."

Harry wasn't sure how he felt about chunk of Voldemort's soul bending his brain to understand the language of snakes. At the same time, if it was the case, then there was still hope to unlock the ability once more.

"So... I have to do what exactly?" he mumbled. "To make the pattern in my head to be strong enough to actually hiss at the sink?"

"Listen to the snake, obviously," Ms. Hojo huffed, like she was angry at him for wasting her time with questions.

The woman made a vague gesture with her hand in his direction and a small, white snake crawled from her sleeve and looked around, its tongue moving curiously.

"This is... I believe the English version of her nickname would be "Jabber"," her mouth twisted in a crooked smile for a short moment. "She is annoyingly talkative specimen and even her family have enough at times."

"You want me to make friends with her?"

"I want you to listen to her," Mamushi looked at him. "While she won't be able to communicate with you in English, she is more intelligent than usual snake. She will remember you and correct your hisses when you screw up."

"A native speaker, huh?" Harry blinked and slowly reached towards the snake.

It was a tiny little thing, barely able to wrap itself around is forearm, with shiny white scales and big eyes that looked like a pair of small, black buttons. Completely different from the giant snake that hanged out around Voldemort. Also, Harry couldn't imagine the huge creature nudging anybody playfully with its head and Jabber was doing exactly that.

"I must warn Hedwig about my new teacher," he said. "I don't want her to be jealous or something..."

He still needed to talk to Ms. Hojo about the other thing. He planned to do it first, before asking for help with the Parseltongue thing. Then, as soon as he walked into the room, he decided to procrastinate, not wanting to hear the answer just now.

At the current moment, he had his hands filled with a tiny little helper and an excuse to walk away. It's not like there wasn't another detention with Ms. Hojo waiting for him. He could do it then.

xxx

"A snake? That's great!"

Harry returned to the Dorms right for the homework time. Ron and Hermione occupied their usual table at the far side of the room. Not even Gryffindors were brave enough to get between Hermione and her schoolwork, so the corner was quiet and there was a health distance between them and everybody else. Unless there was someone desperately needing Hermione's help with something, but even then, people tended to wait for Hermione to move from the table to one of the armchairs for her relaxing evening reading time.

Because of that, Harry could safely share the news with his friends. Which lead to quite surprising reaction from one of them.

Hermione looked at him from over her homework with a worried frown on the face. "Ron... are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You just said "snake" and "great" in the same sentence," Harry chuckled.

"Uh.. you know what I mean!" he protested. "And anyway, this isn't a snake-snake. This is a spirit-snake, which is wicked!"

Hermione blinked.

"Sometimes," she said slowly. "The way you think amaze me."

"Only sometimes?" Ron asked with a wide grin on his face.

"Don't push it," she warned him, then looked back at Jabber.

The white snake looked back at her, waving it's tongue back and forth, the tip almost touching Hermione's nose at several occasions.

"You think we can ask Jabber to open the Chamber for us?"

"Huh," Harry blinked. "That's a good idea. Though Mamushi would act like I'm cheating, or something..."

"You said it yourself," Ron shrugged. "We need to get down there as soon as possible. And you will help us, don't you? Who's the pretty little thing, who is?"

Both Harry and Hermione just stared at their friend, who was chirping sweetly and cooing over the snake.

xxx

The students were distraught, when they discovered that the hour they all considered to be a nap time turned into a horror. Instead of familiar half-transparent figure of Professor Binns floating a few feet over his desk, they were welcomed by Professor Umbridge in all her pink glory.

"Umbridge as a History teacher!" Ron gasped, after they were at the safe distance away from the class. "This is mental!"

"I must agree with you," Hermione said with a frown. "What is she even thinking?"

"I have no idea," Harry shrugged.

"If things keep going like that, then sooner than later the Muggleborn student are going to start dropping off!" Hermione continued. "And with Death Eaters looming around... oh, this is so bad!"

"Dad said she never really liked Muggleborns," Ron grimaced sourly, like he just showed an entire lemon into his mouth. "But she and people with similar opinion can't just say it out loud, because then Amelia Bones is going to get them."

"Of course she can't!" Hermione huffed. "There is too many Muggleborns and Half-Bloods to risk the outrage."

"But with Voldemort..." Harry furrowed his brow.

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "He already has people in the Ministry. Malfoy and the likes of him..."

"Well," Ron shrugged. "At least now she got close to having no time at all. So no more detentions with her!"

"You think that was the idea?" Hermione blinked, turning towards him. "To give her so much to do that she would spread herself too thin?"

"We still remember how you were during our third year, you know," Harry smirked.

"Don't tell me that I'm like her! I'm nothing like that... witch!"

"No!" Ron said quickly. "Of course not! You just like to uh... achieve. And have control. And rules. But sane ones. Really!"

Harry snorted.

Sometimes, Ron was letting his mouth running and it always ended up funny.

"I still don't think this is a good idea, to just let her teach people these things. She's talking to the kids too!"

"And you really think any kid would just let her brainwash him like that?"

"I don't know," Hermione shook her head. "I mean, people got talked into all sort of madness, no matter the age."

"On the other hand," Harry muttered. "At least the kids are going to be warned pretty early about what kind of people they can met in the magical world."

He himself had a nasty surprise. While there were many wonders in magical world, charming far beyond imagination, it was also very, very messy and working in a way, that at times still escaped him. More than once Harry felt like a complete stranger, who didn't belong at all, nor was able to understand a single thing.

Sometimes, especially this year during the summer, he was trying to guess how his life would be like if it lacked magic. The image he came up with wasn't that bad. Boring, but not bad. On the other hand, without magic he never would learn about all the dangers. And that would be bad. Not knowing that there was something odd and tricky, something that could hurt you not because it was angered but just…because. That would be bad. Harry was pretty sure he wouldn't want that. Knowing was better than ignorance, even if it also led to having pretty nasty nightmares.

"You think she is on our side at all?" Hermione suddenly asked.

Harry blinked. "Who?"

"That Hojo woman," Hermione muttered. "I mean... I know that she is risking a lot, but Umbridge herself told us that it was her idea in the first place."

"She is working for..." Harry looked around. "Are we supposed to have this conversation here?"

Hermione hummed.

"Right," she said with a sigh. "I just... I can't force myself to trust her. There is just something wrong with that person."

She was right. The air around Mamushi never was quite right. He almost expected for something dark to creep out of the shadows behind her. It wasn't making any sort of sense at all, but the odd feeling was coming back every time he was her. Suguro trusted her, but then again – Dumbledore trusted Alastor Moody last year and he happened to be a masqueraded Death Eater. Harry wasn't so eager to believe in people others found trustworthy anymore.

And it seemed that he wasn't alone. Besides, it was Hermione who found Ms. Hojo to be suspicious and Hermione always got her head cool and rational, even when he and Ron were about to start climbing up the walls. If Hermione said there was something off, then things definitely were not as they seemed to be.

xxx

"I promised you that something is going to happen if you pull another stupid move, didn't I?" Joseph asked a few minutes into a very awkward tea break.

It was a bit after Mbali left dragging Sirius along to the hair-dresser and for the entire time Joseph was giving him both the cold shoulder and the silent treatment. Ryuji decided to just sit there and roll with it, since the old man definitely deserved to have his vengeance.

He spoke out so suddenly, that it actually made Ryuji jump a bit in surprise.

"It was making sense, at time," Suguro mumbled. "It still does, actually. We do need to learn as much as possible..."

"And that's your reason for risking your life? You made the initial contact and that's enough," Joseph massaged his forehead in a tired manner.

"It's kind of in the job's description, you know."

"There's also something about you being a future head of a temple and in not so fine print either," Joseph grunted. "Your head is worth a lot, kid. You need to learn how not to go places and send people there instead."

Ryuji looked away. O'Callaghann was right, obviously. If someone around here a a good hostage material, it definitely was Ryuji himself. Besides, if he died, he wouldn't be able to realize his plans for the temple and other things. The other things were especially important, because the state they were in could influence his home in a very bad way if something went awry.

"Okay," Ryuji finally said, fingering the edge of his cup of tea. He barely touched the drink and the stuff was now lukewarm and probably tasted awful. "I screwed up, I admit it. I think I got myself too involved with all of this."

"And do you know why?"

"Harry's a nice kid. Kinda reminds me of Okumura too, you know... The guy, he had a whole bunch of issues and in the beginning, I messed shit up."

Ryuji was still ashamed about how he flipped out after learning about Rin's parentage and how long it took him to cut the stupid and start to act like a friend once again. It was an unfair thing to do, it was a nasty thing to do and even if Okumura decided to forget about the whole thing, Ryuji couldn't. He was supposed to learn from his mistakes but it seemed like desperately trying to avoid falling in the familiar trap lead him to a whole new kind of stupid.

"I don't want to isolate you from the case, since right now you're probably the best informed person among us all," Joseph shook his head with resignation. "And I'm not going to tell you if you should keep talking to the magical kid or not. You're an adult."

"But you're still going to keep me away from action," Ryuji stated with a grimace.

"I told you already. I promised you something and I keep my promises," Joseph snickered. "You have about a week to put together your schedule, because the Book Club is starting in the mid-September. Have fun."

Saying that, O'Callaghann stood up and left the room, leaving the empty cup in the sink on his way out. All Suguro could do was to painfully groan. Then he followed the example - a week to put together something that actually made some sense wasn't a lot of time and he also had other things to spend his time on. People to call, too. Every single one of them with a pretty decent reason to scream at him.

As Ryuji walked into his room, he discovered there was another thing to do, preferably as soon as possible - he wasn't around for a while and it was showing all over the place. His desk was covered in dust, his bed was covered in dust and his potted plant definitely died.

"Crap," he muttered and then get to work, because there was no point to procrastinate. Unless he wanted to sleep in a dirty bed tonight.

A week passed in a blink of an eye, or so it seemed. Between creating a detailed plan for the first few schooldays, listening to lots and lots of people voicing their opinion about his disappearance, Suguro also wrote down a training schedule for Sirius – the man really needed to put on some muscles if they were going with the jock gig with his disguise – and tried to stay in contact with Harry.

Suguro also started to lurk around, trying to find people who were in contact with Neuhaus. He could ask Mephisto for help, of course. However asking a literal devil to do you a favor wasn't the smartest idea, especially if it was a little thing like that. Even if the demon was on their side for real, he was still a demon. Very fond of tricking people just for fun. Suguro had quite enough of fun for now.

Then, the time has come and Ryuji had to face teaching people.

At least O'Callaghann hadn't forced him to move all the way to the British TCA, to teach moody teenagers there. Instead, he let him set for the much more local so called Book Club.

The Book Club was a pretty sound idea, considering how big age difference was in every group of people who trained to be an exorcist. The older students were somewhat sticking out among the teenagers and it was always rather troublesome to find a viable excuse for them to be on the campus. While it wasn't a secret that The True Cross Academy was a place to go when one needed an exorcist, most of the people treated it just like a very unusual way of getting more attention and milking money out from the Church.

The Book Club allowed to actually recruit people not only from the TCA, but other places too, without bumping into worrying about good name of the institution or causing a scandal, because someone accidentally wandered where he wasn't supposed to.

On the other hand, the activity of spiritual nature wasn't as high as in Japan or on the continent - or so he heard. Because of that, while it was still a lot to work, not very many people had a chance to painfully bump into a whole new side of the world.

Suguro checked his notes once more and entered the building.

The auditory part of the schooling took place at neutral ground, the TCO simply lending a room someplace else instead using classrooms that belonged to the school. Ryuji had yet to ask around how in the world they were dealing with all the practical work or physical training. Workout in the gym was hardly similar to meeting actual demons. Were they keeping a bunch of monsters stuffed in a basement somewhere? A secret base in the middle of nowhere, filled with nasties? Thinking about it, it was almost sad that he was stuck with books only.

It still was going to be an adventure. He was not only supposed to teach a group of newbies, but also spend time with much more experiences groups of people, most of them already with decent amount of time spend in the field. Apparently, the database filled with well-detailed reports was not enough for these people and they feel the need to poke an Asian exorcist with a stick.

Suguro walked through the doors and stopped by the wall next to the blackboard, so he could look around the room while not being in a way of anybody.

It looked just like any other classroom, with desks in three neat rows, wide windows on one side with view on some threes on the outside and another building behind them. It wasn't as trashed as classes they used to sit in while at TCA, but was still far from sparkling new.

The people were gathering slowly, entering the room in small groups. Apparently, somebody had a bright idea to mix all the groups together, so everybody can hear him ramble about demons at the same time. Nobody really knew if he was going to stay in England for long or if he would end up moving somewhere else. It was rather sound reasoning, to try to squeeze everything useful out of him in the shortest amount of time. Information in this world was a lifesaver after all.

In the front row, there was a group of four people. One of them was a middle-aged woman wearing an elegant dress and high hells - not exactly clothes exorcists were usually wearing, but after dealing with Shura and her so called shirts, Ryuji just shrugged - the rest of them around his age. They were the object of rather unfriendly stares from the other group, this one made of just three people, only one of them below thirty.

Well, at least some people here were interested in actually learning something. The real deal – the true exorcists with the official titles and all – were not yet here, so Suguro had to stall a little. It wouldn't be a good idea to annoy people he wanted to have on his side, even with silly things like starting his first lesson on time.

Ryuji counted another three in the room, each of them looking more or less lost, each of them keeping distance from the other people. So, they had to be the newbies. And just starting, considering how each of them creeped into the classroom on their own. They were teenagers too, so they must have felt quite odd among all these other people, pretty much every single one older than them.

"I haven't seen you here before," the dress&amp;hells lady said suddenly. The woman looked like she already had made her mind about him. That was going to be entertaining.

"Probably because I wasn't here before?" he said helpfully.

She winkled her nose.

"Then you must be one of the new paiges, yes?" she said, but didn't wait for him to answer. Instead, she continued rambling. "Honestly, I have no idea who decided that putting everybody in one classroom was a good idea at all! No offence, but paiges don't have the experience like we do and will only take time from the course, asking all the questions about stuff we already know!"

"Well," Suguro said slowly and mentally congratulated himself for keeping his face straight for this long. "They just want everybody to learn as much as possible."

"This is quite optimistic thing to say," she said, then looked around, her brow furrowing in irritation. "Honestly, I would expect from teachers at least to not be late!"

"Um..." Suguro couldn't keep his face blank anymore. He grinned widely, amused by the nervous woman. "That actually would be me."

She blinked, then looked at him once again, from the top of his head, stopping for a moment probably to count his earrings, then down to the black T-shirt with logo of one of the bands he was listening too, bracelets and his faithful jeans with the material cut just under the knees. It was too hot for that blasted dark coat anyway. Ryuji wasn't supposed to stick out like a sore thumb, since the whole thing was kind of a hush-hush deal for some unexplained reason. A heavy coat during a very warm day wouldn't help with that.

"Well," he shrugged at her baffled expression. "They told me to not overdress."

She opened her mouth, then closed them without a sound and opened them again.

"You are the teacher?" she breathed out, clearly not believing him.

"You want to see my license, or something?"

"How old are you?" the woman shook her head, still troubling with wrapping her mind around unexpected turn of events.

"Old enough," Suguro shrugged. "Four years of active service if you're asking about that."

Now she was just staring, like he suddenly turned into something really, really weird. Well, Ryuji had to admit, he started the whole thing pretty young and even before getting the coat and the pat on the back, he landed himself into quite a few troublesome situations… so, yeah, he probably should start counting himself as a unusual thing.

"If you are who you said you are," the woman managed to regain her cool. "Then why aren't you starting already? It's five minutes past the time and we haven't all day…"

"We're still waiting for the bigger part of the audience," Ryuji explained. "It would be silly to start now just to have repeat everything fifteen minutes in or something."

"They should show up on time," the woman huffed angrily.

"There's a rarely thing like being on time in this job," Suguro snickered. "All you can really can do is to try and adapt to the circumstances."

Which mean that a fluid work schedule was a very good idea. It wasn't like all the monsters and spirits cared about clocks and showing up at decent hour, so you could plan your day or something like that. This job was pretty much about reacting and hoping for the best.

The woman didn't seem to happy with the answer she received, but settled down to wait anyway. It's not like she actually could do anything about the whole situation. Luckily, they weren't waiting for too long. Just a few minutes later, more than ten people walked in and took seat in the far end of the class. Apparently a few of them decided against writing down notes and just left a dictaphone on Ryuji's desk.

"Is this everyone?" Suguro asked.

"Yup," someone answered. "It's not like the entire Britain could just show up here, you know. That's why there's that fancy stuff set up to record everything."

Suguro clapped his hands and moved towards the teachers desk.

"Okay, people!" he raised his voice slightly, just to be sure he caught attention of everybody in the room. "Settle down and we can start working! There are going to be detailed notes accessible through the web, so don't worry if you miss something."

Considering the looks he received, not only the overdressed woman was surprised by his appearance. He was so going to be the talk of the week.

"My name is Suguro Ryuji of MyouDha and I'm currently operating at the London base. I was asked to start teaching this class, because of my experience with things that are considered unusual in Europe." Also, because O'Callaghann needed his petty revenge, but there was no reason to speak about that.

The response was instant. "Is this true that headmaster of Japanese branch is a demon?"

He rolled his eyes. Of course somebody had to ask about that before anything else.

"This is hardly a secret."

Two of the paiges looked at each other with weirded out expressions on their faces.

"Aren't we lake supposed to fight with them?" the braver one asked.

"Not all demons are evil," Suguro sighed. "There's no reason for fighting if they're not hurting anybody."

Or if they were ridiculously powerful beings that bended time and space as they pleased.

"Aren't they like supposed to attack people?"

"Try to ask that question any tamer," Suguro snickered. "And hope he won't punch you in the face."

A snicker came from one of the back seats, followed by a short conversation about how screwed up the system actually was and how unfair it seemed to shove every supernatural being under the demonic names.

"May I ask, what Meister do you have?" the overdressed woman raised her hand slightly.

"I actually got two," Suguro answered. "I'm an Aria and a Knight."

"That's... rather unusual combination, right?" she frowned.

"I actually planned to become a Dragoon, but something is always in the way," Suguro grimaced. By now it was almost like a running gag for him. As soon as the exams were nearby, something was going on. An idiot in need of saving from himself, a broken wrist, a mission that took surprisingly long time because something unexpected had happened… "Anyhow, I do specialize in barriers and seals and that's exactly what I'm going to teach you."

"And what about oriental demons and spirits?" she blinked with confusion. "Weren't they the main topic of this class?"

"First things first," he shrugged. "To identify your enemy you need to have time to actually look at him. Fighting blind is a great way to die quickly."

"And if somebody don't plan to test for the Aria Meister?" somebody else asked.

"Even if you don't plan to get the title, there's no reason to not learn some of their stuff. It can save your life, one day."

"There is already a lot to learn!" One of the younger esquires moaned and dropped on the desk face first in rather theatrical manner.

"Then find something else to do," Suguro huffed angrily. "As an exorcist, you are going to risk your life on daily basis. Did anybody even told you how high the death rate is?"

"Yeah, but we are supposed to work in groups, right?"

"People are getting injured all the time," Suguro cut in, more and more irritated. "What then? Are you planning to just stand there? Or what when you get separated from your group?"

The man lowered his eyes in embarrassment and Suguro could proceed with explaining what exactly he was going to teach them. Dress&amp;Heels and two others were making even notes, so he count this meeting as successful one. The bunch of pros were also making notes and Ryuji expected to see his mailbox filled with all sorts of questions by the evening. At least they knew the basics, so hopefully nothing too dumb. Probably a lot of questions about Satan's son, though. That topic – it wasn't going to die any time soon.

"One more thing, I'm going to ask for paiges to stay for awhile," he finished with a quiet sigh.

The teenagers looked at him curious.

"The higher ups really want to have a so called division for the odd cases. Since you're just starting, you're stuck with me."

Naturally – by now Ryuji expected her to say something – the overdressed woman waved her hand. "And if somebody else also would like to learn something more?"

"You're free to join the group as long as you're not skipping lessons with your other teachers," Suguro shrugged. The more the merrier and if she had already some knowledge in her head, he could use her to control the kids. Teenagers were prone to dumb, and dumb didn't connect too well with the whole exorcist business.

She nodded.

"It would be a good thing to exchange phone numbers and emails too," Suguro said, while picking up the chalk and writing his own on the blackboard. "Here's mine. Text messages only, unless the situation really got out of hand."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**  
**The Man who Summons The Dead**

Teaching wasn't as hard as Suguro expected it to be. On the other hand, his only experience with tutoring involved Rin Okumura and it was quite... intense. Not only because of the circumstances - it was literally the situation of the do or die sort - but because Rin was Rin.

Now Suguro expected the whole misadventure to repeat once more, just with more chaos involved, since there was more than one person to teach this time. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that it wasn't the case and the kids were actually trying to learn something. Sometimes.

"Adam, can you please pay attention?"

Ryuji had to admit, the kid got some balls on him, considering the fact that he was able to completely ignore the murderous glare directed right at him.

"I'm recording," Adam said, like it was explaining why he was currently occupied with scribbling something definitely not related to the topic Suguro was rambling on for the past fifteen minutes.

"And if you discover that you don't understand something during listening to recording?" Ryuji groaned. "It's not like you can ask questions then."

"But I can write them down and do it at the next meeting, right?" Adam answered, speaking as quietly as ever. "Besides, it's not like you're not sending us a whole bunch of reading materials related to the topic."

Ryuji was. He kind of wanted to strangle the brat, too. That kid really should start treating the whole thing more serious if he didn't want to die because of some stupid mistake. Suguro still had no idea, why exactly Adam decided to join or how he gained the ability to see spirits in the first place. Many people didn't like to share their stories, since they usually were connected to a tragedy or a traumatic experience. One had to be quite unsound of mind to decide that fighting monsters was a right career choice.

"Can't you, like, listen now and then do your thing later?" Natalie proposed.

The girl wasn't much better. She was pretty much lying on her desk, with her chin prepped up on crossed hands, with long, red curls loose, covering her backs like a blanket.

"But I'm listening while I'm in the metro," Adam explained. "I can't write while the thing is moving."

"...you're not writing now, you're doodling." Suguro felt the need to point this little detail out.

"It helps me visualize what I want to write about."

Natalie made a small puffing sound, like she was trying to get hair off her face without actually raising a hand to do so. It wasn't working, so she just eyed Adam from under the curtain of messy locks. "Weirdo."

Ryuji had to agree with the girl, this guy was on the odd side and the way he looked wasn't helping any. It was almost like he was trying to create a hardcore image of a member of a crazy metal band but halfway through got bored with the project and was too lazy to put away what he already was wearing.

Ryuji checked the time and sighed. "Alright, let's say we're done for today. Others are going to start showing up in few minutes, so starting a new topic now doesn't make sense anyway."

"So, do I have the permission to write now?" Adam muttered, rolling his pen between fingers.

"Do you have any questions that actually have anything to do with the topic?"

"Not really," the boy shamelessly admitted.

Well, at least he and Natalie were showing up. The third kid sure wasn't, not for the most of time, at least. It was annoying from Ryuji's perspective, but there wasn't much he could do. Besides failing the truant brat, obviously.

xxx

Suguro closed his eyes and sighed. He was finally done with the school stuff for today, but there was still a lot of talking ahead.

No reason to not start now, so Ryuji pulled out his phone and scrolled through the contact list, looking for the number he managed to put his hands on just the other evening. Night, to be exact. Since the middle of the night wasn't the best of time to call someone to ask for a favor - especially one as big as Ryuji needed - so he decided to wait.

Now however was a pretty good time to socialize.

Suguro found himself a comfortable spot to sit, in an uninteresting corner hidden behind the stairs, where not many people wandered off into. He wasn't expecting the talk to take too much of time. Neuhaus wasn't a social person and preferred to get straight to the point even while he was a teacher.

It took three signals before the phone was picked up. Neuhaus happened to be one of those people who just left the beeping instead of changing the signal into something that didn't cause one's ears to ring unpleasantly. Suguro couldn't' tell if it was because Neuhaus was old fashioned or just plain mean. Probably a little bit of both.

"Who's there?" Neuhaus asked. Or said something of sorts. He used German and Suguro never was too good with that language.

"Suguro Ryuji, I am-" he started, but was cut out.

"I know who you are," Neuhaus said. "Though I must admit, I am quite surprised for you to contact me. Our ways didn't part on the best of terms."

"You had an issue going with Okumura, not me," Suguro said. True, the guy went straight for trying to kill Okumura with his undead summons during the exwire exams and because of that the rest of the group was in a tad deeper waters than usually, but it actually was a good thing. Thanks to that they learned early how nasty a situation could get and how they acted while something scary was actively trying to murder the crap out of them.

"I doubt this is a social call," Neuhaus sighed. "So, what is it?"

"As you can guess, I need a favor. A big one."

"How big?"

"How well do you speak English?"

"Ah!" there was recognition in his voice. "I've heard that they moved you all the way to England. So what is it? That thing about the undead keeping crawling out of that one cemetery?"

Suguro raised eyebrows. "You heard about that one?"

"This is quite a curiosity, I must admit."

"Well, it's not that," Ryuji said. While it would be cool to milk out everything he could out of the man, it wasn't the time. "I stumbled into a girl with the ability to summon a ghoul."

"And you decided to reach all the way to me instead of looking for a tamer somewhere nearer?"

"The problem is, there's a chance for spontaneous summoning. The girl is also quite temperamental which isn't helping."

"Spontaneous?" there was clearly disbelief in his voice. "How exactly that can happen? There was that girl in your group, but as far as I understand her situation she was actually connected with her spirits by blood..."

"The situation is quite more complicated here," Suguro sighed. "The family was perfectly fine with that ghoul hanging out in their attic for years."

"...what." It was a shame Ryuji couldn't see his face because the expression definitely was hilarious.

"That's only the tip of the iceberg, believe me," Ryuji sighed. "But that's not something I want to talk over the phone."

"You are not joking, are you?"

"Do you really think I would waste so much time and resources just for a prank call?"

"True," Neuhaus agreed. "Then what do you want from me?"

"Honestly? I have only a vague idea. Depends on what do you make out of that ghoul. A special snowflake, that one. It talks."

"You do remember that a summoned beast and it's tamer-"

"The blasted thing is talking to everyone. Tip of the iceberg, remember."

"...you really want me in England, don't you?"

Well, there was a reason for Suguro to drop all the interesting bits around the place, in hope that the bait would catch.

Neuhaus sighed. "It would still take time to wrap everything up here. But people already wanted to drag me to your place because of that cemetery."

"I'm pretty lucky then?"

"I can't promise much," Neuhaus warned him. "But I'll try. The files are accessible, or should I wait-"

"Right now the whole thing is of the grid," Suguro cut out. "And right now there's a reason for it to stay that way."

"The reason you can't talk over the phone."

"Pretty much," It would suck to get mindwiped - or just plain attacked, since the mind-related magic seemed to not work on him too well - by some paranoid wizard that wanted to keep the existence of his world secret. He honestly had no idea how paranoid the magical people were, but while it was doubtful that they would go after everyone talking about the magic related stuff, Ryuji didn't want to accidentally out their existence either. It would create a whole new universe of a mess. There was enough troubles already on his map, so Ryuji decided that being paranoid was the healthiest way to go.

There was a long moment of silence, during which Suguro was lying to himself about not being nervous. He didn't know anybody else who dealt with the undead on daily basis so looking for another person would take lots and lots of time. And then there was the whole trust issue...

"I'll give you a call when I'll stand on the same continent," Neuhaus finally decided. "Then we could talk about time of my visit some more."

"Understood," Suguro nodded. "And thanks."

Neuhaus just cut the connection instead of answering, but that was perfectly fine by Ryuji. He got what he wanted, more or less.

As soon as he pocketed the phone his adult on-off student walked from around the corner, her heels loudly announcing her presence with every step she took.

"Are you even allowed to do that?" she went straight to the point.

"My mother taught me it is a bad thing to listen on other's people conversation."

She also taught him that kicking women in the butt was a bad thing, even if they were sticking their nose in the stuff way beyond their understanding, just because they were nosy. A shame. Nosy people tended to mess with business of others right until something they weren't ready for chewed their head off.

"And I was told it wasn't the best idea to go around your superiors."

"You were hanging out behind that corner for awhile then," Ryuji snickered. "Enjoyed playing the spy?"

"I wasn't playing anything," she frowned at him. "I just heard something that made me question thing or two. Since you're holding teaching position..."

"Afraid that I'm going to drag the kids down with me? Or it is more about you deciding to associate with me a few days before?" Ryuji raised an eyebrow.

"Don't turn this around..."

"Let's just said it is related to business of the Honorary Knight."

As he expected, the woman paled a little.

"You are working for him?"

"Well, since I finished the school where he's the headmaster," Suguro shrugged. "No way away from that person, once you got his attention, I guess."

The Mephisto Card worked well with most of people who never meet the demon and with many among the people who had the pleasure. Besides, Mephisto definitely already was interested in the wizarding world - no better way to catch his attention than nicking someone he was fond of. He was probably going to take the credit for either making the alliance with the beautiful and new world of wizardry or for discovering a new enemy. Depends how Suguro was going to deal with the situation.

"Look," Ryuji sighed. "It is more than possible that you are going to learn about the whole thing in the next few months."

"So why are you even trying to get around it?" she shook his head.

"Politics," he said simply, because this single word was able to explain everything. More or less. Well, he could tell her that there were people in the Order all too eager to jump to the conclusion and then to blast the potential enemy with all they had – because there were idiots like that everywhere – but for the moment Ryuji felt pretty lazy. The woman was also just plain annoying with sticking her nose where it didn't belong even after he pulled the Mephisto card. She was brave, Suguro had to give her that, but annoying.

She took a deep breath.

"I'm not going to do anything yet," she said slowly. "But if…"

"I get it," Ryuji cut in. "And don't worry. I'm not in habit of using people as my shields."

xxx

It was an early Sunday morning at the Burrow, but Molly Weasley decided to change her clothes for the fourth time, still not feeling quite right.

"Honey, are you sure you want to do that?" Arthur asked, finishing his morning tea and sending the cup to the sink, where the cleaning charm was still working and lazily scrubbing a lone pan. There was already set of the plates dripping wet on the drying rack over it.

"Of course I do!" She huffed at him angrily, then turned back to the mirror, frowning at her white blouse. "I really want to make up my mind about that man before letting Ginny go anywhere! But... do I look fine?"

"You're really pretty," Arthur said with a small chuckle and walked towards her. "Whatever you wear, you always look wonderful."

Molly chuckled. "Oh, stop that!"

"I'm really sorry I can't go with you."

"I don't mind," Molly sighed. "I know how hard you are working. Now go, before you get late!"

"Fine, fine!" he said quickly, walking towards the chimney. "And take care, honey."

"Yes, yes," Molly muttered, waving him a goodbye, then turning back towards the window.

It was ages since she was at the church and Molly was getting nervous. Especially since she was not going there to pray and make good impression, but to meet with an exorcist. Who was supposed to be a rather stern and cold person - at least that was what she gathered from Suguro and his friends when she asked about that man.

Molly wasn't sure if she wanted that sort of a person to teach her daughter. While being stern was definitely a good thing when someone was a teacher, Molly wasn't too sure about the other thing. What if the man decide to turn her sweet girl into his disciple and push her to fight those scary things?

The way people were acting about him wasn't helping. As she arrived at her destination, Molly hadn't actually any idea how to find the man on her own – it wasn't like anyone at the church was wearing an ID on their neck. Molly did the logical thing and asked one of the local priests – a small, thin man that had astonishing singing voice and almost no hair – about the guest. If she wasn't looking for exactly that sort of thing, Molly would surely not notice how hard the priest was trying to not to flinch. She felt like running away at the sight of too stiff shoulders and the forced smile of the man who then led her to the exorcist, but she followed instead.

Oddly enough, the first thing that came to her mind when she set her eyes on that Neuhaus man, was Remus Lupin. Not because they were looking similar, or had the same posture. Quite opposite. Lupin was always slightly stooped, his shoulders slumbered and clothes rather shabby, in uninteresting shades of brown.

Neuhaus was keeping his back straight to the point he seemed to be stiff as a stick. He was wearing black from head to toe and looked... unpleasant, to say the least. It wasn't the stern look Minerva McGonagall had, or something similar to the nasty glare Severus so liked to wear on his face. The man just had a certain aura of darkness around him Molly always imagined vampires to have.

"You're the perzon who vanted to talk?" he asked, looking down at her. It was hard for him to not to, he was probably higher than Suguro.

"Yes," Molly nodded, ignoring the unpleasant tone of his voice. "Do you have time now? Or would you prefer to set up another date?"

"I'm fine," he said. His voice told her he definitely wasn't in the mood for social contacts of any sorts, low and coarse, with a strong accent that made words seems to weigh a tone each.

"Follov," he said. Or rather, ordered.

Molly blinked. "Excuse me?"

"This is hardly the place for such a confferzazion," he explained with a pang of annoyance in his voice. "Unless you vish to spend the nearest hour on your knees in the confezional."

It was hard to not agree with him, so she decided to walk wherever Neuhaus was heading. Which wasn't that far. They entered the area where the visitors were usually not allowed and went down the narrow corridor. Someone jumped out of their way in hurry and Molly felt an odd wave of gratitude that she weren't the only one who found Neuhaus scary.

Molly had no idea what exactly was the room used for when creepy exorcist weren't around, but there was a long, wooden table in there and a set of comfortably looking chairs. The place looked quite cozy with long, thick curtains covered with a subtle flower pattern on the fabric. They were wide open, proudly demonstrating a row of potted flowers and a nice view on the outside.

"Wouldn't you mind me closing the curtains?" Molly asked.

"Whatever," Neuhaus just shrugged and sat down in one of the chairs.

Molly decided he was indeed letting her do whatever stroked her fancy, so she walked towards the window and closed the curtains shut, with a great care and spending much more time than usual on making sure that nobody could see them from the outside.

The exorcist was patiently walking for her to, turn around and rest on the chair on the opposite side of the table. Then Molly shifted nervously, because he hadn't said a word. Only staring at her, with his single eye and it was creeping her out much more that Mad-Eye Moody could even hope for.

"So..." she started carefully. "You control the same... creatures as my daughter."

"That's the theory," he nodded. "But it iz hard to tell anything without actually zeeing."

"I have a memory of it, it should help," Molly said quickly.

The exorcist raised an eyebrow.

Of course!, Molly felt like smacking herself over the head. How could he know what she had in mind, when he was a Muggle? How could she forget something like that in the first place anyway? She was taught about keeping the secrecy from her early childhood and now, here she was, spilling the beans all over the place. Though it could be because the man was freaking her out just by being there. No Muggle should have that sort of aura round him.

"I mean I can share it with you. Make you see what I saw. Literally." she explained.

"Huh," Neuhaus tilted his head to the side. "That actually zounds quite interesting. Proceed."

It was a very strange thing to say, but since Neuhaus was not a native speaker he could not have a full grasp over the language at this moment. He had a pretty strong accent that made all words coming out of his mind sound harsh.

A moment later, an image of Lance standing in the middle of the living room at the Grimmauld Place appeared between them. It included a very cheerful Ginny and dumbfolded Suguro too.

"Huh," was all Neuhaus had to say after carefully studying the monster.

"What?" Molly asked, carefully putting away the crystal bottle. One couldn't just store memories in just anything and creating of such containers was a pretty complicated art of its own. The barely visible pattern of runes on the surface was impressive and hard to read – not to mention to actually understand – for people with decent Ancient Runes OWLs like her. Because of that it was a pretty rare and expensive item. Black told her that she could take whatever she needed from his mansion, but she would still feel pretty bad owing him for the bottle. It was enough she had to ask for the instruction how to use it in the first place.

"That iz interesting."

Interesting. He was a Muggle, that was his very first contact with magic and all he had to say was that it was interesting. On the other hand, he was so stoic it was almost impossible to imagine him actually reacting in any other way to the wonders of magic.

"Can you tell us why... Lance is acting the way he is?"

"He spend too much time in Assiah," he said with an almost invisible shrug. "Here, I mean. He might have not inderact in any way vith your family, but he was capable of hearing you just fine."

"So... he turned out to be friendly and somewhat talkative because he learned it?"

"Zomebody Zomewhere down your line - or maybe your husband's - probably used it as a protective spirit. Zort of like a guard dog, to eat uninvited guests or zomething like that."

Molly shuddered at the implications.

"Whoever it was, bound the ghoul to the family bloodline instead of himzelf alone like it's usually done, so even after his death, the ghoul was stuck."

"But there was nobody to control him!" Molly pointed out nervously.

"While nobody until your daughter had the ability to control him – and that's only us guezing - he was still bout to the family as a whole."

So, it was a bit like a House Elf, only not doing dishes and quite on the stinky side? At least that was what Molly understood.

"Suguro said these things are difficult to control. And that they could attack the... what was the word?"

"Tamer," Neuhaus said. "And yes, they can, but apparently the long stay changed the ghouls aptitude. It's quite interesding, really."

"Interesting," Molly repeated after him. She was starting to hate this word.

Neuhaus just nodded, ignoring the tone of her voice.

"It didn't turned that ghoul into a teddy bear," he continued. "It is still dangerous for other people and even you; ghouls are uzually rather messy."

"I know," Molly said with a sigh.

"Choozing the right words while commanding is important," Neuhaus continued. "Even the most zympathetic spirits can mizinderpret what you have in mind. And I azzure you, ghouls are far from being nice."

"Suguro told Ginny that she is not supposed to call Lance at all."

"Your people are in the middle of something nasty, right?"

Molly slowly nodded.

"Then you can't predict what zituation she vill face. It iz better to think the commands through before you need pull the last ace out of your sleeve."

"But... it could be dangerous!"

"Zo the best course of action is to plan for these things before they happen," he stated, his voice flat. "Zo she won't serve herself addizional trauma by accidentally killing a perzon."

"I won't let her get into that sort of a fight!" Molly cried.

"Can you guarantee that?"

She wanted to tell him that yes, she was perfectly capable of keeping her daughter safe, thank you very much. But when Ginny stumbled upon that accused diary, Molly were anywhere near her daughter. And even if she was there, she still would be absolutely clueless. She knew how to degnome the garden, was a great cook and her biggest accomplishment was modifying a laundry spell, but fighting monsters – that was far beyond her abilities.

It was the most terrifying moment of her life, to learn that Ginny was in grave danger that even Dumbledore couldn't her get out of and she promised herself to do anything to keep this situation from repeating itself.

Molly took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, putting herself together.

"What exactly," she asked. "Are you planning on teaching my daughter?"

Neuhaus just smirked at her and then started talking, explaining the basics. It was as horrifying as Molly expected it to be.

xxx

"How come you're so much better at it than I am?!" Harry groaned with frustration. He managed to psyche himself into expecting that re-learning Parseltongue would be more like riding a bike or doing math - that he just needed a kick for the whole thing to jumpstart and start working like nothing ever happened.

Obviously, it wasn't the case.

The more he tried to repeat Jabber's hisses, the more that little snake looked like she was going to smash her head into a wall, repeatedly. Harry shared the sentiment, at least in between feeling stupid and embarrassed. The walls of the Room of Requirement already got suspiciously fluid, like they were about to become padded with pillows. Dobby introduced them to the place when they asked him where they could safely hide while he was turning the Chamber of Secrets into something that wasn't a deathtrap. It was glorious, taking all the shapes they wanted it to and filling with useful trinkets, but it also seemed to have an odd sense of humor. Which was quite creepy, since it was a room. Magical, but still. Rooms were not supposed to develop a personality.

"I have no idea," Ron shrugged hopelessly. He looked like he felt very sorry for doing better at Harry in talking snake, but he also seemed to be as lost in this whole situation as Harry felt. The snake was looking in his direction too, it's head lolled a little to the side. Sometimes Harry had the weird feeling that Jabber decided that imitating Ron was a fun thing to do.

"Seriously, what I'm doing wrong?"

Jabber hissed something. While Harry couldn't tell what it was, he was certain that was a snicker.

"Uh..." Ron furrowed his brow. "Your accent is kinda way off?"

Harry grimaced. His friend was many thing, but subtle wasn't among them. Him trying to spare Harry's feeling, that actually sting more than most of the things Harry heard in his life. "How off?"

"Like me trying to speak Japanese?"

"You don't know Japanese."

"Exactly."

Once again, Harry groaned, hiding face in the palm of his hand. It was frustrating and annoying, but it wasn't all that bad. Since Ron somehow was able to not only tell the hisses apart but also repeat the sounds close enough to the real thing to gain Jabber's approval. Because of that, opening the Chamber of Secrets wasn't impossible anymore and that was everything they really needed. They continued to work with Jabber because Harry was stubborn and Ron found it enjoyable.

"Oh, you're still working with Jabber?" Was the first thing Hermione said, when she sat next to them, dropping her heavy bag on the table. The room helpfully enlarged the desk, so there was still a lot of space for all the books and other items she started to dig out of seemingly endless purse. "Good! There's no way to tell if we won't need that language for something in the future."

"For what?"

"I don't know yet," Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Then why aren't you learning it with us?" Ron muttered.

"It's not like I'm not helping!" the girl huffed. "I'm helping making notes and all! I just... if I learned something important during our third year it was to not try and do everything at once, I guess."

Ron snorted.

"Are you going to be angry if we agree with that statement?" Harry chuckled. "By the way, how exactly are you making notes, if the Parseltongue is well... I don't think snakes and writing mix together?"

"That's the troublesome part," the girl sighed. "I had to ask mom for help."

"Your mom?" Ron shook his head. "Isn't she a teeth healer?"

"She's a dentist," Hermione nodded. "But she knows lots of people and the internet connection. She's pretty much looking for things linguistic related for me and sending it over here. I think the school owls are starting to hate me for all those piles of paper they have to drag around..."

"Linguistic?" Harry asked. "But how that's even working? I mean... snakes."

"That's why it's all so painfully slow," Hermione sighed. "I pretty much have to create all of the writing part of the language on my own, but I can't do that if I don't understand how it works and how it evolves, but snakes are a different species, so-"

"Okay, okay!" Ron said quickly. "We understand! At least that part about how much work it is. The part with all those crazy muggle words not so much, but we trust you!"

"...unless it comes to not biting into too much," Harry snickered. "Didn't you just told us that you are not going to bite too much ever again?"

Hermione blushed.

"Busted!" Ron grinned.

"By the way, how are you going to explain all these papers if Umbridge decided to snoop around?" Harry asked. "We all know how she is when it comes to anything that's not magical."

Hermione shrugged. "I'm just going to tell her that I want to understand Japanese," she said smugly. "Why it's so different than English and so on."

"You're just going to play it on the fascination over how exotic miss Hojo is?"

"It's not like she's not all over that woman," Hermione shook her head. "Same as many people at the school."

Well, she was right. At times, the whole situation looked plain ridiculous; a bunch of Slytherins were trying very hard to get onto her good side, hoping that it would clear their way towards her sisters, Umbridge was sweettalking her because of political reasons, not to mention Mr. Filch. Mamushi herself was spinning the web of half-truths with terrifying grace, never openly lying.

"While we're at people at school," Ron changed the topic. "You guys thing that we could start the whole defense club thing?"

Harry hummed in agreement. "Dobby said that everything down in the Chamber is sparkling clean now and even dragged down a sofa or two. No idea where he managed to find that."

It was better not to ask and just accept the state of things. The last time they asked how Dobby managed to do something, they ended up with a very long, ridiculously awkward conversation and even longer trip through the castle, because the elf just needed to show them everything, while narrating the whole thing once again. Nobody wanted to repeat that experience any time soon.

"Why are you suddenly so enthusiastic about it anyway?" Hermione arched an eyebrow. "Is it about your sister?"

"Ginny?" Ron blinked, then energetically shook his head. "Why do you think that? She got her own thing to do this weekend…"

His Mom wasn't happy about it at all, for some reason. On the other hand, it was going to be an exercise in controlling a man-eating demon, so…

"And it's exactly why you want to start the defense club," Hermione shook her head. "You want to keep her away, don't you?"

"I don't!" he protested. "I just… She's got her hands full already and Mom barely agreed for her to meet the dude Suguro dug out from somewhere. If she learned that Ginny was getting into a whole other thing that could be possibly dangerous-"

"Aren't you getting too far away with that?" Harry asked carefully. "Learning is not going to hurt her, or anything."

"Yeah, but undermining Umbridge's authority now, with all that undead stuff going on around her?" Ron shook his head. "No way. I know she's probably going to be really angry about this whole thing, but she can't do everything at once and get away with it."

"The question is," Hermione crossed arms on her chest. "Why you are the one to make the decision for her. Shouldn't she be the one to choose what to do with her time?"

Ron sighed heavily. "You're right. But look at this like that: we have a guy who travelled all the way here just for Ginny and he's ready to spend a lot of his time on teaching her just because he's a decent person. We can't just tell him to screw off because Ginny decided to do something else with her free time!"

Not to mention it would royally piss off Suguro and nobody wanted that. He was quite scary when angered.

"It wouldn't be nice," Hermione agreed. "Still, it looks like you're trying to force this whole thing down her throat."

"I'm… I'm worried, okay?" Ron groaned and closed his hands into fists. "She almost died once already, just because she didn't know what she was doing. And we all saw what these things can do, right? I just don't want to see her like that ever again. "

The girl exhaled deeply, slowly relaxing her hands. "I still think you should go and talk to her about that. Not about what you think she should do, but what you're afraid of. But that's your decision. I'm not… I'm not going to repeat what I did with Harry's Firebolt."

Both boys slightly grimaced at the mention of what had happened two years ago. Back then, it felt like Hermione betrayed their trust, stabbed them in the back and demanded a prize for what she's done, while twisting the knife at the same time.

Now, however… It looked different, Harry though.  
Or maybe it was just Suguro who rationalized the whole thing to the point there was no choice but to agree that flying on a broom from an unknown source while a supposed homicidal maniac was on the loose wasn't the smartest idea.

"Thanks," Ron nodded with a small smile. "Really. And I promise, I'm going talk to her. Just not now. Right after the guy says that she's safe. Safeish, even."

Hermione just smiled, her mouth shut tight into a pale line. It looked like they agreed to disagree.

xxx

As every other year, Hogwarts students were restlessly awaiting the Hogsmeade weekend. This time probably even more than usual, considering the fact that the few hours out of the castle meant that they would spend a few hours away from Umbridge. even the Slytherins acted like it was a thing worth living for. It also said a lot about what sort of a person Dolores Umbridge was.

Ginny Weasley was also restless, constantly checking the time and counting every hour, but for a whole different reason than the rest of the students.

It was the middle of the October and Suguro finally managed to made a contact with that guy who was supposed to teach her and mom actually gave it a go. It was a chance, Ginny couldn't waste. She needed the help. Accidentally hurting someone like her brother got hurt... that would be an awful, awful thing to happen.

There was also the other thing, the one that made Ginny nervous about the whole meeting. She wanted to learn how to properly control Lance, how to command him, because that was power. And she wanted power, since having it would mean that being helpless like she was three years ago wouldn't repeat that easily. There also was that little, ugly part of her that wanted the power just for the sole sake of having power. That was exactly what made Ginny worry about the meeting - what if the guy notices that she wasn't all that innocent? What if he will find something else? Something dark and ugly, that would made him to turn around and walk away and then warn mom and Suguro and everybody else about what she could become...

Ginny shook her head.

"This is getting ridiculous!"

Speaking out loud wasn't making it any better, but well, not like someone was listening.

"Divination is a bull and the guy is supposed to be a Muggle anyway," Ginny continued to rationalize. "There's no way for him to see right through me."

There was also no reason for ugly things to hide inside Ginny's head, since Voldemort's spirit disappeared without a trace as soon as Harry destroyed that awful diary.

Ginny put on her brave face and marched down the staircase, to join all the people who already started crowding the Great Hall, filling the place with enthusiastic chatter about all sorts of things they wanted to buy and visit during the trip, telling stories about the place to younger students and doing many different things. She exchanged smiles here and there, played her part for a little while and then there was time for her to disappear in one of the alleys.

She reappeared what it seemed to be a middle of nowhere. Only what looked like an old, muggle road, riddled with holes and cracks, framed by a sad line of leafless trees and a sea of high, dry grass. There was a rusty sign standing nearby. The shield looked like it was about to come off at any time, the letters not recognizable anymore. Looking up closely, Ginny could spot an old, dust-road, hidden in the deep sea of dry, tangled grass. It wasn't leading anywhere anymore; all there was to see was a high, stone fence, half-broken down and covered in moss, with gates in surprisingly good shape considering how bad everything else around looked like. All that was visible behind it, was a broken roof of some old building, riddled with holes.

It was windy in the Hogsmeade, the usual weather during the Autumn with the never ending promise of rain. In This place the air was unmoving and the time felt like it stood still along with it.

Ginny slowly turned around, searching for something, anything that would point her what was next. Did the exorcist just dissed her? Made her show up in the middle of nowhere for no reason other than a few laughs?

"Patience and faith are important vhen you try to control a dangerous sbirit."

The sudden masculine voice with a heavy accent almost made Ginny jump. almost. She forced herself to keep still, not wanting to show any signs of weakness.

Which was spotted.

"Vell, aren't you a tough one," Ginny could hear clearly the sarcasm in his voice.

She turned around, not too quickly, since it could lead to accidentally tripping or something and that was the last thing she wanted him to see during their first meeting. Even if the git seemed to be as charming as Professor Snape, Ginny was going to plaster a pleasant smile on her face and milk the chance all the way through.

The man indeed is high and unpleasant, looking down onto her with his single eye, but at least there's no sneer on his face. The expression is blank to the point the mysterious exorcist looks more like a well detailed mannequin than a real man.

"How did you get here?" Ginny asked. She had to start the conversation somehow and it was as good as anything. Hopefully it would spare the usual weather-nonsense. They were standing on the British Isles, the weather always sucked. No need to repeatedly pointing that one out.

"Though the doorz," he said, like it was explaining everything.

"There's nothing on the other side of that doors."

"Not on that other zide, no."

Ginny felt weirded out, until she remembered; there was a key, a small golden thing that Suguro gave her mum when they needed to get Fred to the safety of muggle hospital. it created - opened? - a path that had no right to be there.

"Right..." she muttered. Now Ginny probably knew why Muggle families were always so uneasy around the magic when they were sending their kids to Hogwarts, or at least a little bit of it. Or how the Muggleborns felt among their wizard-born friends; having the ability to produce sparks while waving a wand, but not really members of the society, not part of the world yet.

"You definitely have an interezding aura," he stated all of sudden. The gaze of his sole eye was cold and locked right onto her, like the man was calculating Ginny's worth.

"Excuse me?"

"You know exactly vat I'm talking about."

Ginny slowly nodded. It was hardly a riddle. What else interesting was there to see in her aura than that?

"I was eleven and stupid."

"And now you're not?"

"Now I at least know to not trust strangers so easily." Her Dad always was talking about how one wasn't supposed to trust things if their didn't know where the brain was. Ginny learned, than even with humans, brain all intact and stuck neatly in the scull, there was still a lot of space for betrayal. The Diary was just on the whole different level when it came to trickstery and manipulating.

The man smirked. "And yet, you're here, talking to a complete stranger, hoping to achieve what, exactly?"

"I'm not sure how much do you know about what is going on… at my place. Sir." Ginny said carefully. He was a Muggle, that she definitely knew. Suguro had to tell him something about magic, but how much, she had no way of telling. Ginny didn't want to outright break the law. With people like Umbridge holding power – and she was sure there were many more just like that awful woman – it wasn't worth the risk.

"And what it changes?" the man humorlessly smirked. "There alwayz are dangers, lurking around. There's always a reazon for zeeking power."

"That power more like bumped into me than the other way around," Ginny murmured. "It's not like I woke up one day and decided that controlling some dead spirit is the way to go with my life."

Seriously, who in the right mind would even imagine a that such a thing was even possible? There were those nasty stories about vampires and the inferi, the muggleborn students brought a whole bunch of entertaining stories about murderers strolling though nightmares and zombies. But those were just that - stories. Then they turned real all of sudden on her, her whole family and friends.

"Suguro told me the basics. The books of his helped, too."

"There are no details, though, are they?"

"I know it is dangerous," Ginny shrugged, desperately trying to act like she wasn't getting more and more scared with every passing minute. The guy still could decline, or treat her like an interesting thing to observe and make notes or something "So it's logical to learn some more, right? To not screw things up."

"Zmart thing," he said. "I haven't decided yet if I like you or fear vat you and your kin can bring upon the vorld."

"I'm not the one who's trying to conquer it," Ginny pointed out. She just couldn't put a finger on this man. He was scary, just in the same way Suguro was. Probably more, especially with that ice-cold glare of his.

"Then you want to zave it?"

"If I can help with that," Ginny shrugged. "Then I will. But I want your help not because of that. I... hurt people, once. you can say it was a spirit. Kind of. I don't want for it to repeat. "

He nodded. "Fair enough."

So... did she do good? Was that a pass, or the man was just making up his mind and talking to himself, or something like that? Ginny found him extremely difficult to read, even more than Professor Snape. With him, you could at least tell if he was hating you more or less than the next person. This Neuhaus guy... his face was absolutely blank for most of the time and even the short moments where he showed amusement were not telling her anything important.

Or maybe they were - sometimes she got that odd feeling from him, that every change of hi face expression was coming a split of second too late, like he was deciding to smile or frown instead of just doing that.

Ginny wanted to curse or kick, or do something, because she was just so damn confused.

She didn't, because that would be childish and Ginny needed to create a good image. Or something like that.

"You have to pozzess zome zort of a talent when you want to be a tamer. A connection to a zpirit, one are you born with. But it's not the most important thing," Neuhaus continued.

Ginny furrowed her brow. "It's not?"

"You can create a contract vith a zpirit if you find one that's villing to work vith you. You can on favors and you can promise zomething in exchange... vich isn't too different from vhat a natural-born tamer is doing."

"Exchange?" Ginny furrowed her brow. "I remember, when Suguro decided to give it a try and check if someone from my family got a thing for summoning Lance... He said that the drop of blood is an offering."

"It iz," Neuhaus nodded shortly. "But at the zame time, it's not good enough for many zpirits."

He took a deep breath.

"A zpirit usually is not your zervant. More like a pardner. He vill demand his share or payment for their favors."

"That make sense..." Ginny muttered. She would be pissed if someone was asking her for help with the homework over and over again and had no decency to even buy her a butterbeer afterwards. "So, how do you know what a spirit would like?"

"Uzually you just have to ask your zummon for preferenzess..."

Ginny grimaced.

"Uzually their preferenzess are pretty cloze to vhat their element iz about, or how they are portrayed in the folklore. For example, fire zpirits will listen only if your blood iz pure enough-"

"Seriously?" Ginny raised eyebrows. "Spirits are blood purist too?"

"It's more complicated than that, but I sav more than onze a fire zpirit refusing to do vork with their zummoners."

"That must've sucked."

"At least they are not prone to attack the zummoner they deem unworthy... which lead uz to the mozd important part of this converzadion."

"The...ghouls are one of those…who attack?"

"I waz told you're already avare of how dangerouz they could be," Neuhaus said coldly. "And vhile you should have zome zort of rezisdance to the poizoning, people around you won't be zo lucky."

Lucky... Ginny would call it anything but that. To live while someone else died, with the knowledge it was your fault, your stupidity that brought that death... a terrifying thing to imagine. She shuddered, then stole a gaze up at the man.

"Did you ever...?"

As soon as the words left her lips, Ginny deeply regretted asking the question. It was more than just deeply personal. She was getting shamelessly curious about something, that probably was the greatest tragedy that could even happen in a life of someone like him. Them.

"I'm sorry!" she said quickly. "Can we please act like there was no question? That was really uncalled for."

He shook his head. "Blood iz zomedhing you are going to zee zpilled, no matter if you're a tamer or no. The path of an exorcist iz a dirty one, no matter hov hard you try."

Ginny licked her lips. "There's no other path for me, isn't it?"

Not with that ability she now possessed. Lancelot was a deadly weapon, an Avada Kadavra on the tip of the wand already shining sickly greenish and there was no way to escape. The death was on every other path available too, patiently waiting for Ginny to lose control over Lance. The only thing she could possibly change was who the dead body would belong to.

The morbid through turned her blood into ice.

No escape.

xxx

Ginny frowned, observing what was going in the Common Room from her corner, hiding face behind a heavy volume of Transmutation textbook, feeling a wave of anger rushing over her like ice-cold water. She forced herself to breathe steadily, but it was hard, almost painful effort.

It all started with a crying second year that walked into a Common Room one late October evening. The girl, with mousy hair bind in two pigtails apparently dared to do something to annoy Umbridge - probably just said something to a colleague or stuff like that - enough for the woman to call for the detention.

And now she was back, terrified, humiliated and in pain, sobbing frantically as the older students tried to calm her down.

Katie Bell, like a responsible Qudditch team captain she was, had her own supplies of creams to reduce pain and swelling so she ran to her dorm and back to get the balm. It was much better than dragging twelve year old girl all the way to the Hospital Wing.

The air soon filled with thick smell of medicine and herbs.

Ginny swallowed.

Something had to be done. Hurting children - or anybody else - like that was despicable and had to stop, no matter what.

But they all were just children that could do literally nothing against the Ministry. Even teachers, including Dumbledore himself, seemed to be hopeless. They only could keep Umbridge occupied with other things than students and this particular strategy wasn't always working.

She observed the people in the common room, all of them suddenly quiet and gloom and chewed on her thumb.

Attacking Umbridge face-on, while a very Griffindor thing to do, wouldn't' work in the slightest. The old hag would use that as opportunity to oppress all of the Griffindors even more. Pranking her would end up with a similar result.

That wasn't what Ginny wanted. She wanted little kids to stop crying like that, holding on their bloodied hands and the easiest way to keep them from getting hurt was to keep the tool of the torture as far from the Umbridge, as possible.

Ginny was lucky or maybe she just keep her head low for long enough to keep the woman for paying attention to her up till now. But she heard the stories about the detentions in the horrendous room filled with kittens paintings meowing from the walls and the quill that was writing with blood.

It clearly was a dark artifact. Ginny heard enough about them from her dad, who told a lot of storied about what he encountered in his work. Mom never let her listen to such things, but Ginny was very good at not being noticed when she didn't want to be.

Items like the quills Umbridge used were definitely illegal, but since the woman was so high up Ministry hierarchy, Ginny doubted that anybody would do anything at all. Even if somebody extracted the memories of students from all of the Houses and send them to the minister himself, she doubted that Umbridge will receive even a slap on the wrist.

No. If she wanted to do something to stop Umbridge, she had to do it herself. Because Ginny was the only one, who had the ability to. Even if a lot of people was going to be seriously angry with her for even considering this option.

* * *

A/N: Hi there!  
I'm sorry for not updating for so long (again -_-'), but I've somewhat burned out and needed time to recharge my batteries. Monthly updates, while very nice from readers perspective, are somewhat exhausting on this end. And writing is supposed to be that time when I'm all about relaxing and having fun.  
(And okay, Neuhaus, no matter ho much I adore the guy, wasn't exactly cooperating. I also wasted a lot of time toying around accent translators, because I wanted him to "sound" cool...)


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